


and either victory or else a grave

by Nanimok



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Badass Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Badass Markus (Detroit: Become Human), Canon-Typical Violence, Careers (Hunger Games), Connor & Markus (Detroit: Become Human) Friendship, Connor Needs A Hug, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Human Markus (Detroit: Become Human), Humor, Hunger Games, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Inspired by The Hunger Games, M/M, Markus needs a hug, Protective Connor, Soft Markus (Detroit: Become Human), Sort Of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-01-26 19:36:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nanimok/pseuds/Nanimok
Summary: Connor is a Career tribute from District 2. Markus is a Seam boy from District 12. They meet in the training centre for the 74th Hunger Games.
Relationships: Connor/Markus (Detroit: Become Human)
Comments: 60
Kudos: 185





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MahoShoujoEren](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MahoShoujoEren/gifts), [Mimoru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimoru/gifts).

> Already got 30k written down so I promise I won't abandon this! Will follow closely (but also not too closely) to the first Hunger Games book. 
> 
> Thank you to Magic, Mimoru, joyeuseful, renderedreversed, and feriswheel for all the brainstorming and screamin. I love my buns and I hope you guys enjoy it. 
> 
> Title is from Shakespeare.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Markus and Connor meet. They bond.

During lunch, the tribute from District 12 slides into the seat across from him. “Hi,” he says. “My name is Markus, and I think we should form an alliance.”

Connor stares at him.

He doesn’t reply, even though he’s been expecting Markus ever since Markus handed Connor his missing photo—the photo of Nines and Amanda he brought into the training centre, in all its scratchy, folded, incriminating glory. 

“I think you should really consider it,” Markus says. “Not only will it be advantageous, but I think we can even be good friends.”

Connor blinks, and grabs another spoonful of his food, and tries his best to will Markus away from his presence.

Markus isn’t deterred. “We’re both outcasts around here,” Markus says. “People from our own districts avoid us like the plague. It’s only natural that we should team up in the Arena. ”

Connor stares at him. “You know what they say about me,” he says carefully.

“That you sabotaged your own brother to get here.” Markus grimaces. “That people should be careful of someone who’d two-time their own brother.”

“Then why ally yourself?” Connor says. “I know you—you’re Markus Manfred. You volunteered to spare your mentor’s son from entering. You volunteered for noble reasons. Why risk your reputation by allying yourself with someone like me?”

“We both know why,” Markus says, and his eyes pins Connor down like an insect for dissection.

And Connor does.

Connor remembers, acutely, the crushing sensation in his chest when he realised his picture was missing—the sheer blind panic as he dropped on to his knees as he tried to find it.

It didn’t even occur to him at the time that someone else was helping him in his desperate plight—a stranger with nothing else to prove but kindness. All Connor could register were the tears pricking his eyes, and Nines’s _“I don’t want to die,” _as they huddled in the darkness of their rooms.

Squeezing the grip on his fork, Connor looks away from Markus.

He’s supposed to be invulnerable. He’s supposed to be representing his District with pride and ferocity. Not a whole week has passed and he’s already failed at doing something as simple as that. He could always ignore Markus and pretend it never happened.

“I’ve made a target of myself simply by standing out,” Markus says. “I wouldn’t mind having someone to watch my back. I’m from District 12; the Careers look at me like a piece of meat.”

“I’m a Career Tribute,” Connor points out.

“But you’re not like them. Like I said. ”

“How would you know?”

“You’re not sitting with them,” Markus says. “And you’re like, actually talking to me, instead of jeering like others.”

Connor blinks. “You have a compelling point.”

“The other Careers,” Markus says, his voice dropping low and dripping with disdain, “They’re… they relish at participating in the Games. Like it’s a dream come true to die for some rich guy’s entertainment.”

“It’s because they don’t,” Connor says. “The price of winning—the glory and the veneration—it outshines anything that happens in the Arena. It’s not like we’re new to fighting as well.”

Markus hesitates. “Your district…”

“Is known for training Peacekeepers, yes,” Connor says. “We began training for the Games the moment we learned how to take our first steps. It’s possible that, had I not volunteered, I would have become a Peacekeeper myself. You still want to ally yourself with someone who could’ve been a Peacekeeper?”

District 12 is one of the least affluent District in Panem, Connor knows, with the highest percentage of people deviating into rising rebellions. They would have felt the blunt of the Capitol’s forces the most, Connor would bet, and by the shot of a Peacekeeper’s gun ringing their ears deaf. 

“Yes,” Markus answers firmly, although his jaw tightens. “We’re tributes now. We have to… It’s no use focusing on things that might never happen.”

Markus holds his hand out, and he looks at Connor expectantly.

It’s like a challenge; most Careers wouldn’t have tolerated Markus’s brazenness. Most would have spat in disgust rather than shake the hands of a miner. One thing is for certain, however, and it became clear to Connor the moment Markus dropped everything in his hands to help a potential enemy crawling on the floor.

Markus Manfred is much too kind for this world.

He won’t last a day in the arena.

Yet, Connor takes his hand.

He gives it a firm squeeze as he shakes it.  
  


* * *

Walking into the training centre, Connor knows that the older tributes will be their biggest threats. Typically the Careers from District 1, 2 and 4—other than himself—for their training advantage and ruthless mentality, but the Careers who were reaped on their last reaping are even more so. Zlatko from District 1 leads the pack, and he looks at people like they’re walking corpses ready to be preyed on. Connor’s counterpart, Tina Chen, is a formidable force with a bow. She scored higher than both him and Nines in archery. She’ll definitely be someone they need to watch in the Arena. 

A sharp, jagged sense of uneasiness swells inside of Connor when his eyes land on the tributes from District 11 and 8. They’re twelve-years old; the youngest ones here. Connor can remember when he and Nines were twelve—they performed exceptionally well in one of their conditioning tests, so Amanda had taken them to the beach. Swimming pools, they’re used to, but a _beach_ with sand that sifts through your fingers and water that tastes as something other than chlorine… Connor and Nines had spent the rest of the day pretending sticks were swords, and sand was landmines. 

There’s a high chance that the tributes from District 11 and 8 will see the real thing in the Arena. What little of the smile forming on his face drops like an anchor sinking into the ocean.

He makes his way to find Markus. 

Markus has a brush in his hand. His other forearm is grey; scaled and layered in a way that looks like tree bark. He holds his arm out. “What do you think?” he asks. 

Connor turns his arm around, and the paint doesn’t ripple glossy in the light. “Amazing,” Connor says. “This looks completely three dimensional, even though it isn’t.”

Markus grins. “Thank you. Although, I was mostly interested in trying out the type of paints they have in the Capitol.”

“What did you think of them?”

Markus huffs a dry laugh. “Better than anything I’ve ever painted with in my life, as usual. So what’s our game plan, Mr. Careers?”

They both watch from across the room as Zlatko continuously decapitates a surrounding set of mannequins heads with his sword. In the target section, Daniel from District 5 practices aiming with his spear. His yellow targets disperse as the spear pierces through where their throat would be. Ralph, the tribute from District 7, holds monopoly over the giant monitor, identifying edible plants faster than Connor could blink. 

“Depends on what you mentor said,” Connor says. “Hank, wasn’t it?”

Markus slides him a knowing look, and Connor notes that his insistence on Markus revealing his information first doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Hank’s been saying the same things as he did on the train, really,” Markus says. “Don’t show off too much. At the same time, put on a good show. Get people to like you and survive.”

“Wise,” Connor says, picking up his own paintbrush and trying to replicate Markus’s movements. “Although I would have expected more considering you saved his son from being Reaped.” 

“Seong-hyun expected that as well.”

Connor tilts his head. “The other tribute from your district?” 

“Yes,” Markus says. “She was pretty cold towards us on the train, but once she realised that Hank’s pretty fair on both of us, she warmed up.”

Glancing around, Connor says, “Not enough to stick with you in the Games, it seems.”

Markus shrugs. “Guess she didn’t want to paint a target on her back. Fair enough.”

Which says a lot about both of them, funnily enough. 

Connor looks at smudges on his arm. He frowns. “Still, I expected something a bit more practical for when we get to the actual Arena.”

“You don’t understand. You’re not from District 12,” Markus says. “That’s the best advice he can give, to be honest.”

Slowly, Markus makes a move to grab Connor’s arm, and it takes effort not to flinch away. Markus hands are warm, calloused from hard labour as opposed to Connor’s weapon trainings. The brush tickles, cool and wet as Markus draws on his skin.

“We’re fighters in our own rights, but our weapons aren’t the same as yours,” Markus says. “Hank says when we’re out there and we’re injured, the best thing you can do is hope that someone likes us enough to send us some medicine.”

Markus offers his arm, and Connor lifts it up. Markus has only done a small patch of his skin, but the difference is stark. 

Connor puts his arm beside Markus. They match now.

“So,” Markus says, amused by Connor’s fascination. “What did your mentor tell you?”

Connor frowns. “Most of the things weren’t helpful.”

Markus raises his eyebrow, and Connor almost feels guilty. “I’m not trying to keep things from you,” Connor says. “At this point, I’d be disadvantaging us both if I did that… but Allen’s advice are mostly combat related. Transferring your fighting skills from one weapon to another. How to compensate for wounded limbs. And of the likes.” 

“Sounds pretty useful to me.”

“You’d need the skills beforehand to transfer it in the first place,” Connor says. “At this point, it’s too late to learn the foundations for a new weapon. The smartest thing we could’ve done is build a skillset around the weapons with the highest probability of appearing in the games. Like knives. Which I’ve been training with since I was seven.”

“Pretty smart of you.” Markus chews on his thoughts. “I was almost recruited to work in the mines when I was seven. Maybe I would’ve died there instead of in the Games if that went through.”

It’s the way he said it, not to make a point with Connor, but of how it’s more of an afterthought which makes it worse. 

Shame colours his cheek. “Smart for a Careers,” Connor revises. “I know that… you…”

Connor stops himself before he can say anything more stupid, and Markus snorts at him. Markus does pick up another paintbrush—dipped in brown paint this time. He reaches for Connor’s arm again, and Connor learns something new about Markus today; not only is he a kind person, but he’s also a forgiving one.

“Even though my adopted father works at the Merchant district, we don’t live there. I am a Seam boy through and through,” Markus says. “The Seam is where the coal miners were. Sometimes I’d help with hunting game, and give them to the first person I see in the Hob.”

Connor blinks. “Why are you telling me this? Isn’t poached game illegal?”

“It is.”

Connor only got more perplexed by Markus’s quick, casual answer. 

“Why are you so confused?” Markus says looking at him curiously. “What are you going to do, future-Peacekeeper? Report me?”

“No,” Connor says without hesitation, and he looks at Markus straight in his eyes so Markus can judge him true. “We’re allies now. ”

Markus almost smiles. “Good.” 

“And we’re tributes now,” Connor says, echoing Markus’s words from earlier. “Either you win and I die, or I win and you die, or none of us wins and we both die.”

Markus frowns again. “I guess there’s that.” 

And Connor could’ve left it at that, because aside from their nascent alliance, they hardly know each other. Connor has nothing to prove to Markus. They’ll eventually have to fight each other, if they even get that far. They’re both living on limited time. 

But, Connor reasons with himself, that’s just it. He’s living on limited time. Why should he refrain himself from the small, inconsequential things he wants?

“I wouldn’t have become a Peacekeeper anyway,” Connor says. 

The brush pauses on his arm. 

“My mother—she used to be a stone quarry worker before she married my father,” Connor says. “They’re…” Connor pauses. “It’s harsh. Unforgiving. She still has scars on her hands from both the work, and the Peacekeepers who kept watch. It’s not a good life. She detests Peacekeepers because, well...”

Connor doesn’t know why it’s important that Markus knows this but it is. Every detail about their lives seems determined to pit each other as enemies. It’s only fair that Markus knows—now that Connor’s met him—now that they’re allies—if Connor had the choice, he wouldn’t choose to fight against Markus.

A moment later, Markus’s brush picks up its pace, but the silence that falls over them is much warmer than Connor’s used to.

It’s while they’re comparing Markus’s body paint to an actual tree that Connor spies her—the small girl from District 11, Lucy, if Connor recalls correctly, peeking from behind a corner. She ducks her head as the subject of her spying—_Markus_—catches sight of her.

Connor almost smiles. “I think you already have your first admirer,” Connor teases him.

Markus shakes his head, and before Connor take back his teasing, Markus mutters under his breath, “She’s the same age as Cole.”

Then Markus changes the subject before Connor can broach the topic of his mentor’s son.

* * *

The days tick down, and training becomes more tolerable, possibly even enjoyable, with Markus as his training companion. They make quite the image, polar opposites as they are, but the stares have died down. People are used to the sight of them. They’re now more preoccupied on maximising their time in the training stations.

Markus and Connor, though, they clash in their strategies—the discussion is heated even though it’s hushed and secretive.

“We need to discuss our strategy on how to best approach the Cornucopia bloodbath.”

“We’ve already got a plan when it comes to the Cornucopia bloodbath,” Markus says drily. “Don’t run into the Cornucopia bloodbath. We turn, run to high ground, and find the nearest water source and do our best to survive.”

“And then?” Connor asks. “We’ll be defenceless. How will we hunt? How will we make snares? We need tools to survive. We can take advantage of the chaos to grab the nearest pack, grab the weapons we need, and go.”

“You speak like we’ll be far enough from the chaos that we can take advantage of the people in it, when you know it’s not true; we’re going to be in the thick of it just as much as anyone else.”

“Not if we’re fast enough,” Connor says. “We don’t have to go to heart of the Cornucopia. We just need to find the nearest pack of supplies.”

“Then we’ll stay at the outskirts,” Markus says. “We could, if we need to, scavenge off the first of the fallen and go. But that’s even if we’re going through with this plan in the first place.”

Connor scowls. “If?”

“We’ll have the advantage of time and distance if we run straight into the forest,” Markus says. “Establish a water source and scavenge for food. We might be lucky enough to find a pack or two along the way. People are bound to die in the forest. We might be able to steal other people’s stuff if we plan from the high up—like the trees. We can even make rope from the bark when we’re safe enough.”

“How can you be sure that the Arena will have a forest to it?”

“Ever since I could remember watching the Games they’ve always had some kind of forest to them,” Markus says. “Doesn’t make sense that they would suddenly change now. All we would need is a sharp stick and a rock, and we’ll be set to go.”

Logically, Connor can’t dispute that. He can only recall one game that was set in a dessert and no more. The harsh environment had killed tributes off faster than any of them could slaughter each other. That Game hasn’t been re-aired in a while.

Connor thinks on it, and he lets the silence stretch. “I haven’t climbed a tree in years,” Connor finally says, a little sulky.

Thankfully, Markus keeps his smug to a minimum.

So, Connor gets a crash course in tree climbing, as thorough and merciless you can get in a day. Markus is broader than him by every measurement except height yet he betrays his agility as they climb up the rope course. He’s a thorough teacher, explaining the reasoning behind every feet and hand movement he makes.

Markus’s explanations only highlight how lacking his passive survival skills are. This will be an advantage they’ll have going into the Arena over the other Careers.

“I’m handy with a spear and a bow,” Markus says. “How likely are they to show up in the Arena?”

“Likely,” Connor says. “But…”

“But?”

“They’ll be right in the heart of Cornucopia,” Connor says.

Then he leaves Markus to make his own conclusions, but he does show Markus the basics of fighting with a knife before the training day ends.

Markus pulls him aside before the bell sends them back to medical. “Do you think we can meet after our private session?”

“I don’t know,” Connor says. “You’re in the penthouse, right? District 2’s apartment is on the second floor, but the security seems very lax.”

Most of the tributes volunteered to be here after all—there’s little to no need for guards to lock them in. The tributes with the most likely chance to escape are situated higher up the building. Even if they do somehow break out—where would they go? How would they go back? Why_ would_ they go back when the Capitol has their families?

“If you can sneak out and be outside the apartment near midnight, I can let you in,” Markus says. “Clem would be asleep, and Hank wouldn’t probably care.”

“What about the other tribute?”

“She’d be asleep, and even if she’s not, as long as they’re quite.

Connor wonders if detached is a trait which all the mentors have or if it’s just Hank and Allen specifically.

“Alright,” Connor says. “I’ll try. I can’t guarantee, though.” Then, Connor hesitates, because really, wouldn’t the next tid-bit of information seem like an admission of weakness? “This will be the first time I try sneaking out,” he adds on anyway.

Markus seems surprised. “You’ve never snuck out to a friend’s place or something?”

Connor thinks on it. “Why would I?”

After all, Nines was right next door.  
  


* * *

If Allen was adamant on one advice and one advice only, it’s to keep his best skills secret until his private session. It’s not the first time Connor has had to perform, but this is the first time he’s thrown a knife in the training centre. There’s a new layer of nerves buzzing under his skin—this could be the last time he ever has to performs. He fumbles with his first throw, and it lands in the quad region.

Mumbling rises in the upper podium, but before the Gamemakers could finish their next drink, Connor makes sure that he hits the next three targets dead-on.

After that, it’s all smooth sailing.

He scores a solid, respectable 10 out of 12. Good, but still consistent with the other Careers. In other words, he doesn’t paint a target on his back.

Markus, however, is given an 11.

No one in the history of the Hunger Games has ever been given an 11. Certainly not someone from District 12. Dread threaten to crawl out of his throat. Fears chains him to his sofa. If Markus had been given a rating for 11, it’ll be for one thing, and one thing only:

Markus has been given the equivalent of a death sentence.

* * *

Connor pounces on him as soon as Markus opens the door of his apartment.

“Markus, what did you _do?_” Connor hisses. “What did you show the Gamemakers?! How did you score an eleven. Do you have any idea—_any_ idea of what this could mean for us in the Arena—”

“Connor,” Markus whispers. “Keep your voice down. You’ll wake everyone up.”

Connor forces himself to breathe. In, and out. Controlling the way he clenches his fist. He doesn’t remember when he started shaking. It worries him more that he doesn’t know if he’s shaking from anger or from terror.

Markus hands move from his arms, up to his shoulders. Connor wasn’t even aware Markus had his hands on him in the first place.

Terror then. Enough terror that it drove him stupid.

“That’s it—in and out—in and out,” Markus says.

Markus is infuriating, because Connor can’t read him. Him and his stupid, spontaneous, bewildering kindness. _You silly, silly man! _Connor wants to scream. _What is wrong with you—looking after other people when you’ve just done and stabbed yourself! _

“I’ll explain in my room,“ Markus says. “Just…. Hold off until then. I’ll understand if you don’t want to continue with our alliance going forward.”

His first instinctive reaction is betrayal—hurt and betrayal after all their planning and talking, Markus would leave him out to their die by himself. But Connor tamps it down, and he runs Markus’s words over in his head again, and finds the conclusions about Markus—and about _himself_—troubling.

“Alright,” Connor says. “Tell me what happened.”

So, as soon as Markus sits Connor down on his bed, Markus tells him what happened. His hands pushes Connor back down when he almost springs from his seat.

“_Are you insane?” _Connor says. “No one had ever aimed for the Gamemakers before! If you had missed and shot one of them, you would’ve been killed on the spot!”

Markus lifts one shoulder carelessly. “I don’t miss.”

“And when you do?” Connor asks tightly. “Who will shoot your enemy dead before they kill you?”

“You will,” Markus says.

Connor shuts his mouth.

Markus shuffles on his feet. “Assuming… that is… you still want to… you know…” He clears his throat and raises his jaw. “Although, I’d understand if you didn’t want to team up anymore. You’ll only be painting a target on your back if you did.”

“You think I’m the kind of person who’d go back on my words?” Connor asks quietly.

“I think you’re someone who wants to go back to their loved ones,” Markus says.

Connor deflates. “Oh.”

“We’ve had a good run—I enjoyed your company. But I understand. No one can blame you for wanting to see your family.” Markus sits on the bed, careful to keep an arm’s length between them. “Least of all me.”

At this point, Connor would be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t attached. Nines always said Connor had the tendency to hover. He got attached too easily. Humans are social creatures who feel the need to pack bond. Outside of Nines—lord, how pathetic does it sound—

Outside of Nines, Markus is probably the closest person Connor has to a friend.

The first friend he makes outside of Nines. The last friend he’ll probably make full stop.

How would Connor fare if he went into the Arena alone? He can fight—better than any of them, Connor bets, but it’s clear that when it comes to passive survival skills, Markus easily has him outclassed. He could suck up to the Career pack, but tomorrow is the day they train with their mentors. If Connor plans to integrate himself in the Career pack, he’d have to do it in the Arena.

Then there’s his previous reaction—the immediate surge of hurt and betrayal when he thought that Markus was breaking their alliance.

“Our alliance stays,” Connor decides.

Markus squeezes his eyes shut. He breathes out evenly.

Connor likes to think that it’s a small sigh of relief.

“Besides,” Connor says. “I have already invested in this alliance, and I would like to see it through.”

Markus eyes him and Connor feels nervous all of a sudden.

“Are you sure you’re staying because you’ve invested too much into this alliance,” Markus asks, “and not because you’ve invested too much into our friendship?”

Connor stands up, heat reddening his cheeks. “I think I’ve overstayed my welcome,” he says. “We have a big day tomorrow. We should sleep.”

Instead of looking bewildered, Markus looks delighted. Like one of the arrows he shot in the dark has finally hit its target.

“Okay,” Markus says. “Whatever you say, Career.”

* * *

“You’ve been making friends with Anderson’s kid,” Allen says, watching him closely.

Connor pauses, and wonders if there’s a right answer to his question. “I have,” Connor says.

Allen lets the silence stretch, but if it’s a tactic he’s trying in order to unnerve Connor then Connor refuses to let it work.

“You know you’re supposed to tell me these things,” Allen says. “I’m here to help you, Connor.”

There’s probably a grain of truth in his sentence Allen seems like he believes in his own words. But he also seems like he’s going through the motions. That’s not something Connor can really blame him for though. Connor’s just another name in a long list of tributes he’s sent into the Arena.

“I’m not sure if you would have approved or not,” Connor says, throwing a bone, just as Allen did.

“What makes you say that?”

“Most of the people here are… _adamant _about the status quo,” Connor says. “A friendship between District 2 and District 12 doesn’t really fit into the narrative.”

For the first time since Allen and Connor boarded the train, Allen looks at him and he finally sees him.

Allen gives an appreciative hum. “It’ll make you stand out in the Games. That’s for sure.”

“I was hoping that it’ll get me sponsors.”

“Friendship, even as odd as yours, are still common,” Allen tells him. “You’ll need to play it up more if you want to win the audience’s sympathy.”

Connor frowns.

“You’ll figure it out,” Allen says, his eyes roaming over Connor’s face. “You’re smart. I wouldn’t expect anything less from one of Amanda’s kids.”

Connor stiffens. “I wasn’t aware you two were acquainted.”

“She has her reasons,” Allen says, and his curiosity burns at the hidden loyalty he betrayed under those words. “Tell me, Connor, what do you expect heading into the ring tomorrow?”

“I’m unsure if you’re trying to mock me,” Connor says.

“I’m not,” Allen says. “I’m genuinely curious of your answer.”

“To win,” Connor says. “Or die trying.”

Allen considers him curiously. “You see, you say those words and it actually means something. I’ve never gotten that from any other Career.”

“Is there a point to this?” Connor snaps.

“You’re a smart kid,” Allen says again, voice dropping to a hushed whisper. “From tomorrow onwards, everyone will be watching you. More importantly, the Capitol will be watching you. Careful as to who’s listening in—and someone always is. Don’t forget; the masonry and stone-quarry worker didn’t used to live like they do now.”

Allen stands up suddenly. “That’s enough chit chat. Any special request for our last training session?”

There’s so many thing whizzing in his head that Connor’s dying to ask. If he doesn’t get the answer now, he might not get the chance at all.

That would mean sacrificing what little time left dwelling on the past. If Connor was going to do that, he’d have to make it at least somewhat useful for his future.

“Your Games,” Connor says. “It was set in the Tundra. How did you protect yourself against the cold? How did you break away from the Careers pack?”

* * *

The next biggest hurdle will be the tributes interviews held the night before the Games begin. The interviews starts from District 1 all the way down to District 12—another system determined to put the latter Districts at a disadvantage, Connor notes. Like the Gamemakers in their private showings, people get bored as the interviews goes on. They check their phones. They go up and get drinks. They fall asleep. They forget the tribute’s names.

Connor has been thinking about what both Allen and Hank said—about playing up their unique friendship for the sponsorships. Markus’s reputation is sure to get people sitting up straight, but only the ones that are interested in the first place. If he lights the embers now, maybe it’ll keep them intrigued until the moment Markus can stoke the flame of the audience’s curiosity to a full blast.

He hasn’t really talked with Markus about what he’s planning. He hasn’t really had the chance to.

He hopes Markus will forgive him for bamboozling him over.

The roaring crowd almost pales to his heartbeat. The light shines so bright in his eyes that he almost freezes. Connor plasters on his most charming smile, though, and artfully dodges questions about the sabotage rumours.

“People will say whatever they want when they’re jealous,” Connor says.

He winks.

Joss Douglas, the flouncy haired host, howled as the audience laps up his arrogance.

Connor can be charismatic if the event calls for it.

“Arrogant, aren’t we?” Douglas smirks to the audience. “We like that! But! But!” He leans in close. “What’s this about an unexpected budding friendship from one of the other tributes? And from District 12, no less.”

This time his smile is more genuine. “Markus is… my friend,” he says. “We’ve only spent a short time together, but I’m glad I met him.”

The audience coos as he ducks his head shyly.

Hopefully, that’ll be enough to keep people’s attention until Markus comes on.

When he steps off the stage, Allen raises one eyebrow at him.

Connor pretends that he has no idea what Allen’s hinting at.

He watches as Markus walks out behind the curtain, and he almost forgets to breathe for a moment—Markus has always been handsome—but has Markus always looked that dashing in a suit?

“So, you are quite a charmer, aren’t you?” Douglas laughs as the audience claps, and he shakes Markus’s knee with his mirth. “Now we know how you’ve not only the heart of our audience, but how you’ve also won the heart of a Career. So, Markus, tell me, is there a special girl back home?”

The audience quietens down in fascination. For a split second, Markus’s fake smile slips around the edges.

Connor hadn’t expected Douglas to complete brush over their friendship, but he finds himself almost hanging onto what Markus is about to say.

“Nah,” Markus says. “Not really.”

Douglas looks at the crowd in disbelief. “No?” he echoes. “I don’t believe it for a second. Look at that face. Handsome man like you. Markus, tell me.”

Markus considers his question, looking down on his lap. “Well… I used to think that there’s no one for me—that I was meant to be alone. But I met someone, recently, and…” Markus tips his head towards Douglas. “You ever feel like you’re the best version of yourself when you’re with someone? That everything about them sings the right kind of chords in you? That you can never get enough of being with this person?”

“My heart is absolutely bursting,” Douglas says. “So you’ve never felt like this with anyone before?”

“No,” Markus says. “I’ve never felt anything like this before.”

Douglas shares a heart-breaking look with the audience. “Well, I’ll tell you what, Markus.” He shifts in his seat, pointing at Markus. “You go out there and you win this thing, and when you get home, she’ll have to go out with you. Right, folks?”

The audience cheers as Douglas forces another laugh.

“Thanks, but I—uh,” Markus says. “I—uh—don’t think winning’s going to help me at all.”

“And why not?” Douglas asks.

“It’s a _‘he’ _actually, for one.”

Someone whistles from the crowd. Markus doesn’t miss a beat with his charming smile.

“As for why I don’t think winning’s going to help me at all…” Markus pauses taking in a deep breath. “It’s because he’s here in the Games with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know that people from District 1 have very glamourous names but just imagine that Zlatko changed his to his nickname or something alksdkajds
> 
> Magic drew something for this AU! Please reblog [ here](https://magickitt.tumblr.com/post/188805158878/thank-you-conneko-for-the-ko-fi-your-hunger) to support her!! It's so beautiful!
> 
> Next time: The Games begin.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Games begin.

A hand grabs his shoulder. “You,” Hank says. “Come with me.”

Markus, who skids to a halt behind Hank, looks pained. “Hank—”

“You.” Hanks points to Markus. “Shut it. You _both _are in _deep shit, _you hear me?”

Allen places _his _hand on Connor’s other shoulder and Connor suddenly feels very empathetic towards the plights of a tugging rope. “Anderson—”

Hank swerves on Allen. “No, fuck you too, Did you know about this?”

“Yes,” Allen says. “Some of us pay attention to things other than the bottom of a bottle, you realise?”

“Fuck you,” Hank spits, and this time, he sounds like he actually means it. “Just because you don’t have anyone to protect from the Capitol, doesn’t mean we’re all in the same boat. We need to make sure _they_ can fucking sell whatever it is they’re selling _here_—in the _Arena_. You realise it’s not only the Capitol watching them, right? It’ll be the Capitol and _President Perkins—_”

“I’m not trying to disagree, but they’ve been handling it well themselves, so far,” Allen says. “I imagine that they’ve done half of our job for us. A friendship’s sweet, but it’s hard to sell. Star-crossed lovers, however…”

“Yeah? And the Capitol will think nothing of the show of District unity? What do you think happened last time the Districts showed unity?” Hank challenges.

Hank and Allen fall into a stare-off, and Markus and Connor exchange looks.

His heart jolted at the President’s name. Connor was aware of the rebellion—it’s the whole reason the Hunger Games begin was conceived in the first place—but he’s unaware of it’s connection here. Surely Markus and Connor aren’t important enough to warrant too much attention? In the grand scheme of things, they’re just two young adults Reaped for the Games.

There’s a whole conversation here in which Markus and Connor aren’t privy to. Hank is the first one to back down, although he’s no less angrier for it.

“You better know what you’re doing,” Hank says. “C’mon, Markus.”

Then he turns, after his bark, and Markus only shrugs before he moves to follow him.

* * *

Connor’s fist hovers in the air when Markus opens the door.

“Connor,” Markus says. “I didn’t expect you to after…”

“After Hank accosted me in the hall, you mean,” Connor says dryly. “Were you going out to find me?”

“Well,” Markus says. “Yeah, I was.”

“That would have been dangerous.”

“Everything is,” Markus says. “At this point, who cares? We’re all going to die tomorrow anyway.”

Connor stares at him.

It’s not like they’ve been tiptoeing around the subject completely—but Connor has never heard Markus sound so deprecating and accepting of their circumstances.

It… worries him.

“I mean, you know it’s true.” Markus rubs his hands over his face. “Everyone’s blustering around it, pretending it’s not what we’re going to do, and I just want to hear someone say it for once… I’m tired, I guess.”

Connor’s torn. There are shadows under his eyes; he should let Markus rest, but they need to touch base about what happened today.

A tiny little kernel inside of Connor, however, wants to comfort Markus, like the way he and Nines would sit beside each other when one of them was upset. He just doesn’t know how.

“Markus…” Connor asks, “… are you… okay?”

Markus stares at him with a conflicted expression. Then he opens the door wider. “Come in, Connor.”

They end up settling in by the windows, watching the bright capital buildings light up the sky. In the pitch black of the living room, and of the night, the buildings doesn’t seem as garish as it usually does. Instead, it’s subtle—almost soft in the way it seems to glow. The light brushes against Markus’s face in a way that highlights his freckles—which, how silly of him for doing this, but Connor almost forgot that Markus has freckles.

“Even if you did get downstairs, how did you expect to get into the apartment?”

“My escort is Cleo and my stylist is Clem,” Markus says, folding his knees up to his chest. “Chloe’s sisters.”

Chloe’s his stylist, and although Connor and her have been nothing but pleasant to each other, there’s always been an invisible brick wall distancing them.

“Oh,” Connor says. “She never mentioned.”

“Cleo told me Chloe would’ve let me in.”

“How, peculiar,” Connor says. “I can’t imagine that Chloe’s hair would be blonde like Cleo’s is.”

That pulls a smile out of Markus, the first real one of the night. “So you thought her hair is just naturally green?”

“You’re making fun of me now,” Connor says. “But I’ve had a classmate try to pass off her ear modification as natural.”

“What kind?”

“She made her ears pointed,” Connor says. “Like an elf.”

“Weird,” Markus says. “But you do you, I guess. You know those three are part of a triplet?”

“I’m sorry?”

“It's pretty obvious when you see them,” Markus says. “It’s Chloe, Cleo, and, the youngest, Clem. They were probably the only thing that stopped the train ride from becoming even more dire than it already was.”

“Is she?” Oddly enough, the thought of knowing his stylist is part of a triplet makes him more fond of her. “I’m the oldest out of my twin too.”

“Your twin?” Markus says. “Nines, was it?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t talk a lot about him.”

Connor recalls the past few days, and feels a surge of dullness thickening. “I suppose I haven’t. I guess I prefer not to think about him.”

“Fair enough,” Markus says. “I guess I’m kind of doing the same. Although Hank makes everything even harder to forget.”

Connor tilts his head. “You seem close to him despite his… attitude.”

Markus huffs out a laugh. “Attitude’s a nice way of saying it.”

Pretty remarkable, in Connor’s opinion, that he found a nice way of saying something about someone who’s not nice at all in the first place.

“He’s not that bad, you know,” Markus says.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to,” Markus says. “I think I’ve gotten good at reading your face by now.”

Connor scrunches his nose. Amanda would have scolded him for his tells.

“I’m sorry, by the way, for the interviews. You offered me a hand and I pulled you under the bus.”

“Don’t be. It’s an effective strategy.”

“Yeah…” Markus looks back out the window. “That.”

They fall into silence, and it’s more peaceful than anything he’s experienced since he was reaped.

“Hank struggles with his drinking,” Markus says. “In case you haven’t figured it out. He’s friends with Carl, though, my adopted father. And when he visited, he would often bring his son over.”

“His son,” Connor says. “The one who was reaped?”

“Yes, Cole.”

At the boy’s name, Markus shares another genuine smile with Connor.

“I have an older brother—Carl’s biological son—but things with him are complicated,” Markus says. “Whenever Hank’s drinking became too much, Cole would come to ours and hang out.”

Frowning, Connor asks, “Too much?”

“Nothing abusive,” Markus assures him. “Hank’s not like that. Just the usual drinking problems, I guess.”

“I’m not quite sure what the usual is,” Connor says. “So, Cole was like your brother in a way?”

“Yeah,” Markus says, smiling. “He’d muck around, eat at ours, help me with Carl—because Carl’s quite frail nowadays. To be honest, we’re all surprised that he lived this long. Most of District 12 croaks by the time they hit sixty. But he’s seventy-five now, and after a bad stroke, he finds it hard to move to his own wheelchair at times. My friends live with us, but Cole brought—I don’t know—a lightness that’s been missing for a while, you know?”

Connor swallows, not sure he understands but so desperately wishing that he did.

“Hank wasn’t always like this,” Markus says, as if letting only a small confession has caused an outpour of truth. “But the Games, it changes you. Even if you win—even if you never end up participating. It takes a toll on him—having to train the kids on his own, getting attached, only to lose them in the Arena every year.”

It suddenly strikes Connor— “He’s the only living victor in District 12, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“And he would’ve had to give up his son,” Connor says, his stomach dropping. “Until you stepped in.”

Markus’s reply isn’t nearly as quick. “Yeah,” he says. “He would’ve.”

Even though he never put a voice to his thoughts, Connor feels ashamed for his previous sentiment of Hank.

“Cole’s…” Markus says. “Cole’s a good boy. Family’s more often found than not, aren’t they?”

“I… I wouldn’t know,” Connor says, but he has a feeling that Markus needed a brother just as much as Cole did. “I’ve always had Nines. And Amanda… my father passed away when we were young. I can’t even remember his face at times. It’s always just been the three of us.”

“I just don’t want them to change me,” Markus says. “I don’t want them to turn me into something I’m not.”

“Do you mean you won’t kill anyone?” Connor asks, his eyebrows furrowing.

Markus lets out a harsh laugh. “That’s a fool’s dream. I’m sure I will, like everyone else in the game. I don’t want to be another pawn in the game. I wish there was some way of showing them that they don’t own me. That if I’m going to die—I want to still be me. Does that make any sense?”

“Yeah,” Connor says. “It surprised me, is all.”

“How so?”

“It’s not something I’ve ever thought of.”

“But don’t you have a brother too?” Markus asks. “Why go when you have him waiting for you back home?”

Connor shrugs. “I didn’t want him to go, so I went instead.”

“There was no one else to volunteer?”

“Everyone’s a volunteer in District 2,” Connor explains simply. “We were top of the class. What more is there to say?”

Markus is watching his face, and Connor never realised how _blue _and how _green _his eyes can be. “It can’t be that simple.”

Connor looks away. “I’m a Career, Markus,” he almost mumbles. “The Games are basically what I live for.”

Connor spends another two hours at Markus’s, listening about his life as a Seam boy, about Cole and Hank and their geese, about his loyal and dear friends, Josh, Simon, and North. In turn, Connor shares his own stories about Nines and Amanda, although it doesn’t seem like much compared to the tales which Markus and his friends get up to in the woods.

They should be getting sleep, but they’re stuck picking at the dread which sticks them to their seats. It’s hard to sleep when you know that there’s nothing but the Games waiting for you tomorrow.

When Connor does finally decide to head back, Markus walks him to his door.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Connor says, and after thinking about it for a couple of seconds, he offers his hand out for a handshake.

Markus blinks his hand before stifling a snort. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says, shaking Connor’s hand.

* * *

A tracker is injected into his arm, and the sting is a pale promise of the other wounds he’d be getting in the Arena. The ride to the Launch Room is a blur of nerves and adrenaline, although the organiser made an effort to place Connor and Markus as further away from each other as much as possible. Markus glances at him, before they’re escorted their separate ways, and Connor can already hear what he wanted to say.

_“You know people call this place a Stockyard, right?” _Markus-in-his-mind says. “_It’s where animals go to get butchered.”_

Connor doesn’t want to think about that. He doesn’t want to think about many things right now. He eats as much of his breakfast as he can, and dresses in the jacket and boots Chloe directs him too. When he finishes zipping it how, he comb a hand over his hair, sighing when his usual stray fringe bounces back on his forehead.

Chloe smiles and combs it back for him. “I’m afraid that piece of hair is never going to behave for you. I have something for you.”

She holds out his picture of Nines and Amanda.

Connor had to refrain himself from reaching out straight away. A tribute token is supposed to represent their district, as well as reminding the tribute of home. Connor had forgone the representation, and grabbed the nearest picture frame he could find.

“It’s not really a tribute token, but it passed the screening,” Chloe says. “I figure no one will get hurt if you bring it with you in the Arena.

Connor touches the photo, before taking it into his hands. “Thank you,” he says softly. “I’m the eldest too, you know.”

“Hmm?” Chloe says, fixing the lapel of his jacket.

“I’m the oldest out of the two of us. I was born nine minutes earlier than him and he hates it,” Connor tells her. “Doesn’t help that I used to call him Nines when I was younger and now the name’s stuck.”

Chloe’s face softens, breaking open like shell. “And it has nothing to do with the fact that you never let him forget it?”

“Not at all,” Connor insists. “It’s simply unfounded hatred.”

Chloe laughs. “I’m sure it does,” she says. “I was born six minutes before my sisters. I never let them forget it either.”

A pleasant voice announces that it’s time for the launch. Chloe pulls her expression into a smile. Connor thinks it looks sadder than what it’s meant to.

“You’re a sweet boy,” Chloe says. “Especially for a Career Tribute.”

The glass cylinder lowers itself around Connor. Surely, that’s must be why Chloe’s eyes suddenly look so glossy.

“Good luck, Connor,” Chloe says. “And may the odds be ever in your favour.”

* * *

For a long while, there’s only the plate and Connor moving in pitch black. There’s a war in him—the desire to freeze time fights with the desire to just—skin himself from the suspense and get everything over with. Then, the choice is taken away from him. A flash of bright, white light. A clear blue sky follows, and the piney green of the forest which stretches beyond his eyesight.

_Markus was right, _Connor thinks. _There’s always some kind of a forest in the Arena._

“Ladies and Gentleman,” a voice booms around them. “Let the seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin!”

The countdown begins at sixty seconds. Step off the podiums before the sixty seconds end and a landmine will blow you sky high. Sixty seconds seems simultaneously too long and too short to survey their new environment. Connor shuffles his feet, and searches the circle of Tributes for Markus, before the first two seconds have passed.

The Cornucopia stand in the middle of the circle of Tributes in all its angled glory. Taller than Connor had expected, but not tall enough that Connor would struggle climbing it. Packs and supplies are fanned out from the centre, with the most desirable and high-grade weapons nestled in it’s heart, and the lesser made, weighted equipment closer to the podiums.

They’ve never finished deciding whether they would turn and run, or make a break for Cornucopia. But Connor spies a sheath of throwing knives amidst a rack of other ranged weapons—like a spear for Markus. God, it calls him. He’ll have a better chance of fighting his way out of the Cornucopia with his knives too. If he’s fast enough—if he sprints for his life—

He catches sight of Markus, eight tributes to his left. Markus is eyeing a gleaming white bow resting on a crate. He locks gazes with Connor.

Markus gives him a nod.

That all Connor needs.

When the gong rings, Connor sprints to the Cornucopia.

Adrenaline pushes his muscles to go harder_—faster—_let his legs eat the ground until he grabs a spear. He quickly sweep the sheath of knives off the hard-packed ground. Someone grunts near his back, and Connor springs sideway, sweeping his spear around, grazing the tribute from District 5 by her thigh. She—_Emily_, Connor recalls—jumps back, snatches the pack by her foot and runs into the forest.

In that split second, Connor realises he could pin her down if he wanted to.

He sprints towards Markus.

Markus is fighting someone over a pack—Rupert from District 9 if he recalls correctly. He’s further from the heart of Cornucopia than Connor would have liked, but at this point, it’s for the better. The inner ring of the Cornucopia is matted red from the bloodbath. Rupert has his blade too close to Markus’s neck. Connor doesn’t think of it—he unsheathes a knife—

—feels a brush of wind that’s too small—too localised to be a breeze—

—and dodges sideways as someone with a machete slashes where his shoulder was.

Attacking a Careers—that’s one hell of a bold move.

Before the boy from District 10 could recover, before he could spring up from his slash, Connor flips the grip of his knife. He sidesteps behind District 10 and stabs down the side of his neck.

This is the first thing he learns from the Games: a human body—made of muscle, cartilage and bone—is somehow both softer and harder than the Capitol’s training dummies.

Blood sprays on his face. The taste is the second thing he learns. It’s as thick and as metallic—and as hot, as grimy, and as _sticky_—as what it smells like.

He yanks the knife out of District 10’s neck. District 10 gags and before he could clutch his throat, Connor’s head snaps in Markus’s direction.

He throws the knife into Rupert’s back.

The knife sinks down to its hilt, and Rupert spasms forward. Markus pushes Rupert off him. His face is also splattered with blood. He has a pack one pack slung around his shoulder and one in his hands. The packs are from the outskirts. It won’t contain as many useful things as the ones in the middle, but it’s much more than what Connor was hoping for.

Connor jumps over District 10’s toppling body. Something warm drips down his neck. Connor doesn’t know if it’s his sweat or blood crawling under his collar and he doesn’t give himself a second to pause over it.

_Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. _

Focus on the excitement thrumming in his veins. Focus on the elation which spikes when he comes out on top. Focus on his feet, and winning and—_not about failure—_and run, run, _run_—

Markus tosses a glance over his shoulder and catches his eye. Together, they sprint into the forest.

* * *

Markus takes the lead as they venture deeper into the forest, inching further and further until he’s finally ahead of him. Gradually, they slow into a jog. The more distance they can put between them and the Cornucopia, the better. Connor doubts that any of the other Careers can catch their trail, but they still need to be careful. 

_Boom! _

His hand snaps to the sheath of his knives, which are now strapped by his chest.

Connor lets it falls in relief. “It’s just the cannons,” he mutters, as they keep going _boom, boom, boom—_

“So the bloodbath is over,” Markus says.

“Seems like,” Connor says. “… seven… eight… nine. Nine tributes are dead.”

“Less than half,” Markus says. “It’s lower than the other years. The Game Makers won’t like that at all.”

Connor contributed to almost a fifth of the bloodbath. He doesn’t know how to feel about that.

“We should keep moving,” Markus says. “We need to make camp.”

Finding a water source is their utmost priority currently. Already, his throat is crying for nourishment. The surviving participants from the bloodbath will be taking stock now, going through the water and food nestled in the Cornucopia. When a rabbit crosses their path, Connor wonders why Markus doesn’t skewer it on the spot. Connor reaches for one of his knife, but Markus stops him with a hand on his elbow. 

“The rabbit needs to drink,” Markus says. “It’ll lead us to a water source.”

Connor nods, feeling both grateful and outclassed once more. He’s never tracked or stalked a rabbit, and he wouldn’t know where to start. So, he stays a step behind Markus to make sure that every step he takes is a silent one.

They keep moving downhill—like water does, Markus tells him—and soon they stumble onto a lake, startling a rabbit who’d been lapping at the water. Connor drops beside the lake, shouldering his pack off shoulders and unzips it. There’s a sleeping bag, a canteen, dried fruit, and some rope. Markus rests his spear on the ground before opening his own. The contents are largely the same, although there’s an extra packet of crackers and a bottle of iodine in his pack that’s not in Connor’s.

Markus shakes the bottle of iodine. “Should we?”

Connor glances at the lake. “It looks okay. Shouldn’t it be if the rabbit was drinking it earlier? We should save the iodine in case the Game Markers poison the waters later on.”

“We can’t really be sure,” Markus says. “Rabbits eat their own poop so they can reabsorb the nutrients they missed the first time.”

“True,” Connor says. “Although…”

“Although?”

“You scored an 11, Markus,” Connor says. “Killing you off in the first day seems a little anticlimactic, don’t you think?”

Between dying from poison and being torn by the Career pack, it’s clear which one would make a better show. Markus slips the bottle of iodine back in.

Connor fills his canteen while Markus cups the water with his hands. He’s careful not to dip too much of his hand in—it’s still covered in blood. Pacing his thirst is a challenge but he manages it. By the time, he and Markus had their fill, Connor feels a little more human.

He fills his water bottle, and once Markus has filled his, Connor splashes water on his face.

Then he rubs and rubs and _rubs _until he’s clean again.

For all of their glorifications of the Games, District 2 is much like the other districts in their grief. He’s seen the parents of previous tributes. They’re hollow and gaunt and they waste away the moment they realise their child’s not coming home. Amanda’s not one to mince her words, but she’s softer when she addresses them—like all the other parents in the Academy.

He did that to them—he did that to District 10 and Rupert’s parents.

And he doesn’t regret it.

It was him or them, and Connor chose himself—and it’s unfair for other people to ask him otherwise—but how do you explain that to the tribute’s parents when he doesn’t even know District 10’s name? Connor aches to creep his hand into his pocket and clutch his picture. But he doesn’t want to get it wet, and he doesn’t want to share the small bit of Nines and Amanda he has with the whole of Panem.

Markus suddenly grabs his hand. Connor looks at him in surprise.

“Connor,” Markus says, his own face free from blood now. “You’re scratching yourself.”

Connor doesn’t register Markus’s words until he finally notices that his face is stinging. He can almost trace the lines his nails have made from the stings alone.

Gently, Markus pulls Connor’s hand away from his face. “Let me,” he says. “There’s only a little bit left on your hair.”

Connor considers pulling away, but Markus’s hands are warm, and it’s sears over the thick layer of numbness that’s settled on his skin.

He kneels forward, hovering his head over the lake. Water pours over his scalp, and he closes his eyes, when Markus’s finger washes the blood from his hair. He grabs Markus’s hand by instinct, before Markus could pull away.

“Thank you,” Connor says.

Markus is quiet, and Connor almost cracks one eye open to gauge his reaction. A second later, Markus’s fingers are back in his hair. A light trickle of water runs down his fringe.

“You too,” Markus says, breaking apart a thick strand of hair with his forefinger and thumb.

His holds Connor steady by the shoulder with his other hand. There are no accusations in his touch. No disgust—he only continues his wordless acts of understanding.

Relief sags his shoulders.

Their silence is peaceful—almost comforting—a feat that seems more and more possible the less dried blood flakes on his skin—and it’s only broken by a slight smacking sound as Markus dips in his hand into the lake.

* * *

Having the world watch your every move is interesting. He’s more aware of his actions—every step he takes, how it would be perceived, and would it deter any sponsors their way? Would they think Markus and Connor a coward for running into the woods? It’s the more sensible move, they wouldn’t be able to overpower all the careers by themselves, but it’s not entertaining. Would that lose them a number of sponsors?

Although, they make a good team—Markus showcasing his survival skills will definitely shift their odds in their favour.

Many times, Markus looks as if he wants to remark on something to Connor, like he’d usually do in the training centre. But then his eyes would shift through the trees, and his mouth would instantly snap shut into a hard line.

Privately, Connor admits that it makes him begrudge the cameras a little more. When there’s a lull in their schedule, they’d fill it with conversation amidst their training. The districts hardly have any contact with each other. It’s interesting to hear how Markus spends his day, and Connor didn’t realise how much he would miss it until it was gone.

“Now,” Markus says. “Time for the greatest challenge of all.”

“As opposed to surviving this far,” Connor says, amused. “Which has obviously been a piece of cake.”

“Hush you,” Markus says. “You’re about to be tested and proven true. Follow my lead.”

“Got it.”

Markus climbs, and Connor follows him, careful to mimic his grip and hold. They stop on two level branches, going in separate directions but thick enough to carry their weight. They secure themselves with rope, before going into their sleeping bags and waits for the sky to turn dark.

Connor trades some of his dried pears for Markus’s peaches. He gets a cracker as a bonus.

“A penny for your thoughts?” Markus asks, in between his chewing.

Connor takes a bite of his cracker. It feels dry in his mouth.

“I can’t stop thinking about his interview,” Connor finally says.

“Who?”

“Rupert from District 9,” Connor mutters. “He said he had an Aviary back home. Named everyone one of the birds after characters in his favourite book series.”

How does Connor wrap his head around that—Rupert and passion for birds in the interviews is the same Rupert who tried to skewer Markus as they fought over the pack Connor is currently carrying. The same Rupert who Connor then skewered in turn.

His appetite wanes. Connor sips his canteen and tucks what was left of his food for later.

There’s a pause, only broken by the sound of the forest humming.

Then, “I have a cat back home,” Markus says. “His name is Pepsi. He’s a black, tabby cat, and he’s very fat and cuddly.”

Connor leans back against the tree, grateful that Markus can’t see his face. “Tell me about him,” Connor says. “When did you get him?”

“He found us actually,” Markus says, and Connor can hear the mirth in his voice. “I fed him once—my mistake, I know—and next thing I know, he’s sleeping on my bed, eating my food, and he warms Carl’s lap better than any blanket could.”

“Smart, kitty,” Connor says. “Going straight for the man in charge.”

“He really is,” Markus says. “He trades cuddles for food, and it’s a compelling currency. Sometimes, he doesn’t go inside until every else is home. So he’d wait until I—”

Markus stops himself, but Connor already knows what he’s about to say; Pepsi waits for him when he’s slipping through the broken electric fence caging in their district to go poaching for game, Connor knows.

Markus told him back in the training centre, but it’s not like he can say it out loud.

“Until you finished work, right?” Connor offers.

“Yeah,” Markus says slowly. “Until I finished work. I miss having him annoy me at night.”

Connor wishes he knew that feeling. “I want a pet someday.”

“They’ll walk all over your life.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Connor says. “Do you get affection for compensation?”

“Only if I beg for it.”

The Capitol’s anthem breaks their conversation. A succession of faces light up the sky above them. He stomach drops when he sees that one of the young ones—the Tribute from District 8—is the first one to show up, but it lessens once Markus’s little admirer doesn’t show up.

There’s a train of faces that he doesn’t recognise. Then Rupert pops up, and Connor has a flash of the baseball cap he wore throughout all their time in the training centre—

And then there’s Chris.

The boy from District 10.

Connor tries to remember his interview, but finds that he couldn’t. His interview was closer towards the end, and Connor had struggled to engage with the interviews towards the end. He was, unfortunately, too tired and nervous to concentrate.

He should have tried harder, maybe, then he’d have something to remember the boy by. Something other than the feel of his knife stabbing through his neck, and the warmth of his blood as it splattered over Connor’s hands.

That’s not completely true, though. At least, Connor knows his name.

_Yet, _Connor thinks, turning in his sleeping bag.

Somehow, knowing his name didn’t make sleep come any easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, Connor doesn't really have many friends. F. 
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed! I thought about making the Jericrew competitors,,,,but I didn't want to kill them lmao. F for everyone else though. Also, Pepsi is a cat from [Mimorugk's](https://mimorugk.tumblr.com/) RK1K sims family. Feel free to ask her about Pepsi!
> 
> Next time: More Arena Shenanigans.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day Two and Three of the Arena.

The second day starts much quieter than the first.

“We should keep moving,” Markus says, already making his way down the tree. “The more distance we have from the clearing the better.”

Connor packs his sleeping bag and rope, and stretches his limbs. They’re a bit cramped from sleeping at sitting position. He’s used to a bed, Connor decides, he should just get used to it since it’s going to be his future from here on out.

Once his feet lands on the ground, he turns to Markus. He’s about to ask a question, but when he turns to Markus, he stifles a small laugh.

“What?” Markus asks, when Connor stares a second too long. “What’s up?”

Surely, Connor shouldn’t miss an opportunity like that?

“We were,” Connor says, biting in his cheek.

Markus looks pained.

“But your jaw,” Connor says, moving his hand to mimic Markus. “I’m just amused, is all. It feels like your stubble grew out of nowhere.”

“Huh,” Markus says. “You’re an interesting kid, Connor.”

“I’m very certain we’re the same age,” Connor tells him.

“Not all of us can have a natural babyface,” Markus says, leading them through the forest. “Besides, my birthday was second day of training.”

“Oh,” Connor says, because that would mean that Markus volunteered on the literal last days of his Reapings. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks,” Markus says. “Treating the alliance as a birthday gift. Let’s go and find our next camp so we can set up snares there.”

Markus is more at home in the woods than at the training centre—that’s clear to see. They walk through the woods in companionable silence. Sometimes, Markus points out particular trees and plants to Connor, even if he’s quite vague about why they inspire such facts in him.

Allen did show him how to eat the edible layers under the bark, so that’s one thing he can contribute to their little camp. He also showed Connor how to differentiate the edible trees from the poisonous ones. One knife is gone, but he still has nine left. A generous amount—but it’s the prize he gets for venturing into the heart of Cornucopia. He uses a rock to help dig the tip of his knife into the pine tree, and skins small white strips of bark into his hand.

“Try not to skin too much from one tree,” Markus says, running his down the bark. “The pierce in their barrier will leave them prone to disease.”

Connor hadn’t thought of that. Then again, he’s always caught off guard with the way Markus hands out his care so freely.

“There’s no guarantee the tree will survive anyway,” Connor says. “The Gamemakers could flood the whole Arena if they wanted to.”

Still, Connor moves on to the next tree, and he gets rewarded with a smile from Markus. 

A smile is only worth what Connor is willing to value it for, Connor knows. He should stop valuing Markus’s approval so much—it gives Markus more power over than he has any right to, even if Markus himself isn’t aware of it. But then, the same argument from the training centre pops into his head; his days are numbered, so what’s the point of denying himself such small things of enjoyment? It’s not like Markus would know anyway. What’s the harm of hoarding his approval like a thick jacket during winter?

They continue making their way deeper into the forest, finding a water source only once more in their journey. Almost a quarter of the iodine is gone after they’ve finished the purifying their canteen—a little too much for Connor’s liking. The sun blares down, and heat pricks on his open skin. Connor can feel the tip of his ears burning, and he wishes, for another irrational second, that he had a bottle of sunscreen to slather around his neck.

It’s too quiet. It puts him on edge. In the distance he sees smoke drifting into the sky, and Markus, grim-faced, continue their path in the opposite direction.

Moments later, the cannon booms. Connor can’t say he’s surprised about it. If it was easy for them to see the smoke from inside the forest, it’d be doubly easier for the Careers who are camped in the clearing.

_“—kus!” _a guttural cry pierces the air. _“Markus, help me!”_

Connor doesn’t recognise the voice, but evidently Markus does.

_“Carl!”_ Markus sprints forward, leaving Connor in the dust. _“Carl!”_

“Markus?” Connor calls out, running behind him. “Markus!”

The screams only grow more harrowing as Connor gets closer. A shrieking cry of someone in unbearable pain. It spikes his heartbeat the louder it becomes. When Connor finally breaks through a patch of shrubbery Markus has thrown his spear like a javelin—

The screaming stops, the silence only punctuated by their heavy breathing.

“What was that?” Connor asks. “Was that—a muttation?”

“A jabberjay,” Markus answers, looking pale and shaky. “I need to—grab the spear, but—shit—a flock should be near.”

“Leave it,” Connor says. “The noise is going to attract someone here.”

“But—”

Connor grabs Markus’s arm. “Markus,” he says, as gently as he could. “We need to go.”

Markus blinks, and his eyes gain it’s focus. “Yeah. Okay.”

A ear-splitting caw rushes at them. Markus jerks back, but Connor’s hold on him stays and he pulls Markus into a sprint. It’s like a chorus of shrieking-a vicious cloud of jagged black bringing nothing but torturous screams and pleas for help. Connor could hardly hear his own heartbeat over the cacophony of suffering stifling them under.

Jabberjays bump and rush around them. their claws scratching and catching on any bit of skin and hair exposed. Connor ducks his head, his cheeks stinging. He raises his other hand to protect his eyes, when he catches a voice that’s similar to his own, yet not quite.

_“Connor!”_

Connor digs his nails into Markus’s arm. _It’s not Nines, _Connor reassures himself, barging through the jabberjays with a sudden vigour. _Nines is at home. I made sure of that. _

Markus lets go of his hand, slamming it over his ears, and Connor distantly registers the different timbres pleading his name, over and over. Gripping a knife in his hand, Connor does what he does best—he slashes out, and a twitching jabberjay almost trips his feet. He keeps slashing, aiming to dig his knife into anything firm and warm, but the jabberjays are careful now. They’re more wary of him.

The fallen jabberjay causes a domino effect—a great surge of wing retreats into the opposite direction as Markus and Connor keeps running forward. 

* * *

Once the adrenaline from the flock attack dies down, Connor feels exhausted, sweaty and numb through the whole ordeal. It’s still ringing in his ears—the tone and inflection they managed to put into Nines’s voice—the pure, sheer, unaltered panic and terror—

Connor shakes himself out of it. Nines is safe at home and he has bigger things to worry about currently. Like food and water. Connor thought Markus would still be too shaken to hunt for dinner, but Markus seems to throw himself into making snares as soon as they found a tree they can rest on.

Hunger constantly burns at the edges of his senses. It chips away at his focus and precision more than he wants to admit. Connor wonders how Markus can work himself so hard with such an empty feeling creeping away at his stomach, but he’s possibly used to the hunger—Markus did mention before that he learnt to hunt out of necessity, not from leisure.

They leave the snares overnight, and Connor manages to nab himself a squirrel. Markus shows him how to gut and skin it. Connor ignores how his knife digs easily into the squirrel as it did in Cornucopia, and between the squirrel and the embers of a fire they managed to muffle out, they share a quaint, if rather smoky, meal between the two of them.

They’ll need to find another water source tomorrow. Connor’s canteen is almost gone, but that’s almost a pale worry compared to the anxiety of what else nestles in these woods.

Only one face lights up in the sky tonight, a girl from District 5. That makes ten of them gone, with another fourteen to go.

They’re dying at a slower pace than last year’s games. The Gamemakers will want to do something to change that.

“Connor,” Markus whispers. “You there?”

The question strikes Connor a little funny. It’s not like he could be anywhere else, bundled in his sleeping bag and perched on top of a tree branch.

Honestly, his jokes are probably why he doesn’t have many friends.

“Yeah,” Connor says. “What’s up?”

Markus pauses. “We are,” he says, and this time he’s the one biting his cheek.

Connor closes his eyes. He sighs a little forlornly. “I guess this is fair retribution, as cruel as it is.”

Markus snorts. “You’re so melodramatic for a Career Tribute,” he says. “But I wanted to ask if you knew much about jabberjays?”

“Only things you’d gleam off a textbook,” Connor says. “I’ve never seen them in person before. They’re muttations engineering in a lab. The Capitol used them as spies against the enemies.”

“They can only mimic sounds they’ve heard themselves, right?”

_Ah,_ Connor thinks. _He’s still shaken by the jabberjays.  
_

Connor wonder whose voices Markus heard in the flock. Connor only had Nines calling for him, but Markus had so many voices begging for his help.

He must have a lot of people waiting for him at home. Which makes it all the more tragic when he volunteered.

“Yes, but,” Connor says, “the source they mimic doesn’t have to be authentic. They could be trained by digital recordings warped to sound like… all the people it sounded like”

“Right,” Markus says, reassuring himself. “Right. Everyone’s safe, and at home, and… watching us on screen right now.”

Connor can hear the frown in his voice. “The viewing of the Games are mandatory,” Connor agrees.

“About the jabberjay again—you’re really certain about that?”

“I’m very certain about it,” Connor says, trying to keep his voice as soothing as possible. “It wouldn’t be hard with the kind of technology that’s available in the Capitol.”

“How do you know?”

“I have a hobby of collecting knowledge considered borderline trivial,” Connor says.

“Okay,” Markus says, and he falls quiet.

Connor is reminded of the day before, of the lifeline Markus threw when he was sinking under the conflict of his kills.

After one of two seconds of equal parts debate and silence, Connor asks, “Would you like to hear some?”

“Hmm?” Markus says.

“Wold you like to hear some of the trivial knowledge which I’ve collected?” Connor asks. “Like odd luxury machines made only in the capital. There’s one I think you’d like. It’s like a canvas, but the drawings are digital and they can only be shown through a monitor.”

“That does sound like something I’d like,” Markus says. “Maybe I should’ve asked to try it out while in the training centre.”

“The Capitol has this one particularly odd invention,” Connor says. “It believe it’s specifically for curling hair that’s not naturally curly. That’s how they also give the wigs volume and height. The flattened oblong machine emits heat and the heat helps press the hair into shape. Not that—” Connor halts. “Uhm—”

“I’m not bald naturally, you know,” Markus says, mirth in his voice. “You don’t need to be afraid of offending me. It’s just a haircut.”

“I wasn’t sure,” Connor says, a little flustered. “I didn’t want to presume.”

“You can presume all you want,” Markus says. “What other facts do you usually collect?”

“I like learning about common misconceptions,” Connor says. “Like how there’s no specific part of your tongue that’s reserved for a certain taste-bud, and how goldfish have a memory spans that last longer than seconds—in fact, they last up to months at a time.”

From the lack of reply, Connor almost thought that Markus has fallen asleep, but then,' Connor can hear Markus shift in his sleeping bag on the branch across from him.

“No way,” Markus says, as if Connor had given him the secrets of the world.

Connor almost breaks out into his own grin. “Way,” he says, settling in his own sleeping.

He gets himself more comfortable as he digs inside his head for more facts to pull out.

* * *

Hours after he falls asleep, Connor jolts awake as stampede shakes the trees they perch in. Dawn barely breaks the horizon, but a shadow of bright orange blazes through their vision. Connor has to blink before it fully registers—

A wall of fire races towards them.

Distantly, he can hear Marks swear while he shuffles out of his sleeping bag. Connor stumbles to unbuckle himself, and ends up falling off the tree branch. His bones rattle, but he rolls out his fall, and everything stays intact. Markus is already scrambling down the tree when Connor shoves his sleeping bag into his backpack. A pack of wild dogs bolt around them and Connor and Markus sprints behind their tails.

The fire is too tall, too fast, and too uniform to be anything else but Gamemakers-made. This must be how the Gamemakers plan to flush them out. Too many people are surviving inside the forest and not enough are dying. Living tributes are boring, so they corner the Tributes towards the Cornucopia clearing, where it’ll be easier for the Career pack to hunt them down one by one.

In the past, he was fascinated with the way the Career pack hunted down the other Tributes. Then they turned on each other, and it became a mad flurry of violence, with guts and blood spilling out. 

Connor never knew who to root for in those situations. He knows that he should be loyal to his District, but a small part of him always hoped that the underdogs would miraculously win the situation.

He never would have guessed that he’d be part of the prey flushed out for the Career pack. 

Heat nips at their ankles. Thick smoke billow around them. It’s counterintuitive—trying to stop himself from choking a mouthful of smoke while gasping in enough air to fuel the strain they’re putting their body under. His body wants to collapse to his knees and cough until the stinging on his chest eases, but he keeps pushing himself. He drags Markus by the sleeve of his jacket when he sees Markus slows down, almost feeling bad for Markus when he trips forward. They can’t afford to stop though, and taking in more of the smoke in their lungs will only worsen the feeling in their chests.

Against all odds, they outrun the fire, but that only puts Connor more at unease. Connor lands on his knees, trying to rein in his coughing. Markus folds forward, his chest shaking uncontrollably. 

“We need—” Connor breaks off, coughing. “We need—keep going—it’s too quiet—”

Markus slams on his own chest. “A minute, Connor,” he says, sipping from his canteen. “Please.”

_Water, yes, _Connor thinks, taking his own canteen out of his bag. _Water is good._

Connor doesn’t even know when Markus has slipped his canteen out of his bag. His sense of awareness is shot and his head still spins. His chest won’t obey him, no matter how deeply he breathes. His lack of control is horrible—his hand is shaking and he almost spills what little of the precious water he has.

The water is achingly sweet and refreshing—and it ends all too soon.

Connor sighs. He forgot he only had a little bit left from yesterday.

Loathing swells up out of nowhere. He should have rationed his water more effectively—but the wave goes as quickly as it crests. Now all Connor has left is smoke-smelling hair, soot-covered bag and an empty canteen. 

He tips his canteen fully upside down, just in case he missed some drops the first time. When he puts it down, he’s shocked to find Markus offering his own canteen to him. 

“I can’t,” Connor says, out of good grace and habit.

“Have some,” Markus says. 

“It’s my fault I didn’t ration the water properly anyway.” 

Markus doesn’t say that it’s because Connor’s not used to having limited food all his life, but he doesn’t have to. Instead, he says, “Take the water, Connor. We’re a team. We’ll need to find another water source anyway after this.”

Connor can’t really fight with that. He will only drag them down in their search if he’s stumbling from dehydration. He does, however, limit himself to one big swallow so that he has something to offer when he gives Markus his canteen back. 

Markus grabs his canteen, and doubles back to pull Connor up to stand—to Connor’s surprise.

“Are we planning to circle back deeper into the forest?” Connor asks. 

Markus shakes his head. “No guarantee they won't just flush us out with another fire. It’s better if we—”

There’s a hiss, and Connor tackles Markus on reflex. The land on a heap, the breath whooshed out of them. The tree behind Markus has fire eating away at its bark. 

The arm of his jacket is singed black from where the fireball brushed him. 

Another hiss, and they scramble apart without looking. The ground has a clear circle from where the fireball hit. They barely manage to stand before another _hiss _and a fireball chases at their feet.

The message is clear; keep moving or burn with like the ground before them. 

From watching the games, Connor knows that only certain areas will be rigged with these fireball launchers. Probably hidden in the trees and the rocks like cameras are—that’s how they can aim at Connor and Markus with the right precision. If they can outrun the area rigged with fireballs, they’ll be safe—for the moment at least.

So they devolve back into running, flinging their bodies whichever way to dodge the fireballs. The Games is more like a running marathon—Connor has done more running in the Arena than he has in the past year. But he can’t keep running forever. The exhausting is starting to settle into his muscles. 

There’s an acrid stench rising up with the fire, and it only makes the lightness in his head worse. The fireballs are coming less and less, though, so the end is nigh. He just needs to keep running—

Connor throws himself sideways, the heat of a fireball pressing too close to his scalp.

His heart is slamming in his chest. He has to face it—his body isn’t used to high amount of exertion when he’s famished and possibly dehydrated. 

_Weak! _Connor berates himself. _All that training_—_after everything Amanda sacrificed to make you strong and you’re still so weak!_

A hiss, and a flash of bright orange-red in the corner of his vision. Connor stumbles, landing on his ass. He scuttles back, but not further enough. The sleeve of his pant catches fire, and heat chips away at the fabric. 

"Shit!" Connor hisses, slamming his hand over the small flame licking up his leg without thinking. 

Markus digs his fingers into the dirt, and pat a big clump over the fire on Connor’s leg. “Where are you hurt? Do you think you can stand?”

There’s another hiss, and Markus jerks himself back to dodge it.

Enough with his doubts! It's only another way for his exhaustion to chip at his resolve until he makes a more fatal mistake. 

Connor shuffles over, and hauls Markus up by his hand. “It didn’t hit skin. Just my pants.”

“Lucky,” Markus says—

—there’s a hiss. Markus doubles over, almost yanking Connor down with him. _“Fuck!”_

A fireball has skittered over Markus’s calf, and a good portion of it is on fire. Markus falls down and rolls his leg back and forth in the dirt.

It’s too dangerous for them to stay, Connor knows. One person injured may not be enough for the Gamemakers. He needs to drag Markus out—or even run by himself. It doesn’t feel right—even though they’re in the Arena—even though there can only be _one winner. _They’ve already gone above and beyond a normal alliance. Markus has always went out of his way with his little acts of kindness, and it doesn’t feel right to repay his kindness back by running away like a coward.

And they’re supposed to be lovers, Connor suddenly remembers. Star-crossed lovers. He can’t leave Markus behind now. Who would ever want to sponsor him if he had left Markus to die?

Connor kneels down by his feet. “Hold still.”

Markus flinches when he spies Connor’s knife. “What are you—”

Connor lies his torso on Markus’s leg. His hands are raw, and he only remembers by the spasm of pain as he grabs onto the searing-hot fabric. He can’t dwell on it. It’ll hurt more if he does. He pulls and chips the fabric off, angling the knife out so it doesn’t cut into Markus’s leg. As soon as a tear carry momentum, Connor rips a patch from Markus's trousers and chucks it aside.

His hands throb angrily at him.

Markus swallows. “How does it look?”

“Red,” Connor says grimly. “Weeping and blistered. Do you think you can stand?”

“I think I can,” Markus says. “But I—I understand if you don’t want the hassle—”

“I’m not the one who’s tried to back away from our alliance for the second time,” Connor says, throwing Markus’s arm over his shoulder.

He lifts them both up, and although Markus has lost considerable weight since coming into the Arena, so has Connor, and it takes more effort to stop them from stumbling over.

“Fuck the Gamemakers,” Markus mutters his breath. “Fuck them—fuck anyone who think it’s okay to throw fireballs at people.”

Connor squeezes Markus’s waist in warning. “Let’s not the tempt Gamemakers.”

“Too late for that,” Markus says. “Clem. My stylist called me ‘the boy on fire’. It’s only apt if they set me on fire. Challenge fulfilled.”

Connor remembers Markus and Seonghyun’s black matching outfits, carrying a coat of flames as they raised their hands into the sky.

Unease hardens in his stomach. “If Clem’s anything like Chloe…” Connor tries.

“It’s not her fault,” Markus assures him. “There was no way she could have foreseen this.”

A cannon blasts into the sky—a bleak reminder that setting ‘the boy on fire’ _on fire _is only a perk of its actual purpose.

At least, they’ve stopped shooting them with fireballs. Highly likely, however, that they’ve only stopped because another form of danger is near.

“We need to check on your leg,” Connor says, pushing them forwards. “Take advantage of the small break that we have.”

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere safe,” Connor says. “Hopefully. Maybe a tree?”

“We’ll be too easy to spot,” Markus says. “We’re too close to the others. It’s what the Gamemakers wanted, wasn’t it. It’s the only reason they stopped firing at least.”

“Then we keep moving,” Connor decides. “Away from the smoke, at least. If a lone Tribute finds us then we can handle them.”

It doesn’t need to be said that if the Career packs finds them, well, then there will be nothing left to do but die.

They trudge on, Markus’s breathing becoming more pained with each step they take. Connor’s so sick of smoke and fire—it’s unrelenting thickness and powdery soot—that he almost collapses to his knees when a slither of daylight breaks through.

* * *

Maybe Markus was right before. Maybe luck, for once, is on Connor’s side. They stumble, quite literally, into a pool flowing from the crevices of a small rock cliff. After slipping their leather boots off, Connor rests Markus on the edge of the pool with their bags before wading in. He already knows, from Markus’s shaky sigh, that the coldness is going to be healing.

Relief slams into him as Connor forcibly uncurls his hands under the water. He almost sighs himself. It’s ironic that something so soothing could hit as hard as one of the Capitol’s train bullets. His hands doesn’t feel so oversensitive with the heavy weight of water soothing its rawness.

“Connor.”

Markus throws him his canteen, already full and sanitised with the iodine, presumably. Connor has a feeling that Markus wouldn’t have given it to him unless it was safe to drink. Another one of Markus’s little act of kindness.

“Thanks,” Connor says, taking few sips. “How’s your leg looking?”

Markus grimaces. “Ugly,” he says, stretching his leg out in the pool. “Hurts every time I move it.”

Markus is bending over, trying to gingerly slip off the boot of his wounded leg. Guilt suddenly spikes in him, for not helping Markus with his booths. He wades over, and chucks his canteen into his bag.

“Hold still,” Connor says.

Markus grimaces, but he does as he’s told nonetheless. Connor slowly under his boot and slips it off while Markus’s calf is still under water. He tips the boots upside down once it slips off, water splashing back into the pool, and arranges it neatly beside his own pair. 

“Honey and Aloe should help with the burns,” Connor says, taking a peek at Markus’s leg wounds. “Although I wouldn’t have a clue on where to start looking for them.”

Markus’s wound isn’t too deep that Connor can see any bone, thankfully. His skin alternates between red and white, both shiny and swelling, and blisters sprinkle over the wound like decorations over a cupcake.

“It looks like a second-degree burn,” Connor mutters. “Possibly third-degree. If you’re feeling pain, that means your nerves haven’t been burnt away and that’s fortunate.”

“Whoop-dee-doo,” Markus says. “I guess the odds are in my favour.”

Connor winces. “At least none of the skin is charred or blackened.”

“I don’t know,” Markus says, looking up at Connor from under his eyes. “I think it’s much too late for that.”

Connor takes a second to let it sink in, while Markus looks at him expectantly. He even has the gall to wiggle his toes against Connor’s leg, despite the pain it must be causing him.

His priorities sure are strange.

“I’m pretty sure it will be inappropriate for me to laugh,” Connor tells him.

If anything, his remarks only make Markus more delighted. Markus barks out a laugh, before he flinches at the sudden movement.

Which brings all their attention back to Markus’s calf.

“Would you…” Connor skims his fingers over the surface of the water to hover over Markus’s calf. “Would you like the area around your wound cleaned?”

Markus seems surprised that Connor would even offer. “Yes, please.”

“Tell me if it hurts and I’ll stop.”

“I will. Being clean would be nice though.”

Connor runs his hand down the side of Markus’s calf, and it’s warm despite the coolness which surrounds them. He rubs the soot out of Markus’s skin as best as he could, but he keeps a solid finger-width away from the wound. Markus still muffles his pained gasps, but even then, he tells Connor to keep going.

“Damn this leg,” Markus says, quiet enough that only Connor can hear him. “Damn this Arena. Damn the whole fucking Capitol who puts us here in the first place.”

A lump immediately forms in his throat, and Connor’s eyes ratchets up to find Markus already starting at him in challenge.

Even when they think they’re alone, they never truly are. Connor bets there are microphones in between the seams of their clothes, layered as deeply as the tracking chip injected in their arm, and the cameras hidden in between pool’s crevices.

Defiance is woven into Markus’s soul, Connor knows, just as much as his kindness. It’s not like Connor is completely blindsided by this quality either. Markus dropped enough hints, back in the training centre. Hints which Connor never picked up. He’s entitled to his contempt, considering his life in District 12, but to go against the Capitol so brazenly? Everyone knows what happens when you openly rebel against the Capitol.

“Careful, Markus,” Connor says, his eyes flitting up to the trees above them.

Where all the cameras are.

Where the whole of Panem watches their every move.

_I’m sorry, _is what Connor wants to say.

“You don’t mean that,” is what Connor forces himself to say. Then he catches Markus’s gaze and stares him down.

Markus looks away from him.

“I’ve seen the gentlest dog bite her owner because she was in pain,” Connor says.

_I’m sorry for not giving you the right to your own pain._

Markus breathes in slowly. “You’re right,” he says in an exhale. He stretches his face into a smile, and it’s nothing like the one he’s been pulling out the last couple of days. “I apologise. I wasn’t being fair. All the people I’ve met from the Capitol has been so lovely. And I hope they’ll be gracious enough to forgive me for doing them so wrong.”

Connor is surprised Markus could force himself to say it without keeling over dead.

Looking at Markus’s fake smile borders on painful, but Connor gives him tentative smile back, and Markus’s smile softens into something a little more natural.

* * *

After sharing the last of their dried fruit and crackers, Connor ventures out to hunt for some unlucky rabbit while Markus stays behind at the pool.

They’ll need to get going, but Markus has a better chance of traveling longer after a heftier amount of sustenance. He was already wincing every time he lifted his leg outside the pool, Connor remembers grimly, and unless someone is generous enough to sponsor him some medicine, Markus’s odds for the future aren’t looking too promising.

Suddenly, he hears them—a chorus of laughter which sends shudders through his body. Connor crouches on the grass, keeping low on the ground and creeping close enough to spy at their backs.

The Career pack.

Five of them in fact; Zlatko and Trace from District 1, the tributes from District 4, whose names escapes Connor at the moment, and Carlos Ortiz from District 6, the odd duck of the bunch.

Out of all the tributes Reaped in their year, Zlatko is the one who worries him the most. He’s Career-trained, and he scored a 10 just like Connor did. But unlike Connor, there’s a sharp, jagged, and _sadistic _edge to Zlatko’s bragging. He’s cruel to stray cats, if Connor recalls correctly, and he looks at you like you’re nothing but a walking corpse for vivisection. Connor has only sat with the Career’s once, and he remembers Zlatko’s fascination of pain and anatomy betraying too much of his questionable past-times.

How the Careers tolerate him, Connor doesn’t know. The two from District 4 laughs with him like the silly things they are. Lowering their guard and leaving themselves vulnerable when Zlatko would finish them off given the chance. Carlos Ortiz seems awed by Zlatko, though, and that speaks more for his character than anything else. Wasn’t he reprimanded by an official in the training centre? For harassing Shaolin from District 11?

A small part of him is relieved that Tina’s not part of this particular pack. She’s probably still working with them; it’s the smart thing to do. They’re not friends, per say, but from all the years of growing up together, Connor knows that Zlatko is the type to grate on her nerves. He wonder how long it will take before Tina snaps and ventures out on her own. 

They’re heading towards the pool, Connor realises with a start. They're heading towards the pool where Markus still lies injured.

Connor against five are bad odds, even if he has his knives. Markus against five would be worse because of his leg.

Connor’s at a cross-road. No one would blame Connor for leaving him behind. This is the Hunger Games. He should be thinking about himself—

Who is he trying to fool? He didn’t leave Markus back at the fire and he’s not going to leave Markus now.

Connor has a feeling that maybe—just maybe—if Connor and Markus had met outside the Games, they could have been very good friends.

So, Connor quietly shuffles his feet into position. The boy from District 4 blocks a clear route to Zlatko. He’ll have to do.

District 4 raises one hand to pat Zlatko’s shoulder. Next thing he knows, there’s a knife sticking out his throat and he gurgles on his own blood.

The cannon booms.

Connor turns around and bolts.

His instincts are on overdrive, feet pounding against the ground. He hears the other Tributes swearing his name, but he pushes himself to run deeper into the forest. A javelin flies past him—Trace’s only one, if Connor recalls correctly. Swerving, he leaps over a fallen log. Hopefully she’ll leave the javelin behind in hopes of catching up to him.

Connor only has a split second advantage. He spies the thick, sturdy branches of a tall tree and scrambles up its side.

“Come back here, you District traitor!” Trace hisses once the Career pack clusters below his tree.

Connor ignores her, focusing on the bark biting at his raw, burnt hands, as he continues to lift himself—

His foot slips.

Connor catches himself, his chest rattling from fright. His hand stings as he digs in his fingers.

_Deep breaths, Connor, _Connor tells himself in his head. _Keep your grip solid and don’t look down. _

Someone swears, and there’s a crack, followed by a heavy thud—like failing and falling down the tree. Good. He bets none of them have a remote idea on how to get to him either. Once his hands start shaking in exhaustion, Connor slowly crawls onto the nearest fork in the tree. He wraps his arms over his knees before looking down.

They look like ants from up here.

“Where’s lover-boy, Traitor?” Trace calls up. “Fell down the mines and forgot how to get up?”

“If you’re trying to scare me, it’s working,” Connor tells her. “Your trash-talking is absolutely horrifying.”

Trace fumes. “What did you say to me?”

“I think you spoke for yourself quite clearly.”

“Leave him, Trace,” Zlatko says. “It’s not like he can go anywhere else.”

“After he made a fool out of us?”

“I’m not saying we let him go scot-free,” Zlatko says. “He’ll have to come down sometime. He doesn’t even have his bag.”

_He’s right, _Connor realises, squeezing his eyes shut. _He left all his bags with Markus. _

“Wait, what about the other one?” the girl from District 4 asks. “The guy from District Dirt who scored an 11? We can double back and catch him off-guard.”

“Assuming Stern hasn’t killed him off,” Carlos says. “I mean, think about it. A cannon went off and Stern’s here alone. I bet the whole ‘lover’ thing was a fluke so that Stern could get close enough to District Dirt and slit his throat.”

On one hand, making them think Markus is dead is probably the best way to insure them not doubling back and hunting Markus down. On the other, Connor is basically stranded in this tree until he decides to come down and face his opponents or the Gamemakers force him to.

He needs to be resourceful. He needs to find a way out without going down this tree.

_Markus would know what to do,_ Connor thinks to himself. _He knows basically everything there is to know about surviving in the forest._

_What would Markus do?_

Connor thinks on it.

He flips his middle fingers out at the Career pack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone's wondering, Connor is 18 and Markus is 19. 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who's read, kudos, liked, bookmarked and commented! I love you all! I will try my best to reply to some in the next couple of days.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor gets himself into trouble, out of trouble, and makes a new friend.

Thirst and hunger starts gnawing at his body soon after night blankets the forest. He tries to think of anything _but _of the food and water he’s craving for and it's no use. God, he's so weak. He’s only been without for a day; Markus has been without for the majority of his life as a Seam boy. How does he do it?

Connor curls into a ball, shuddering as the cold forest breeze and running his thumb over the picture of Nines and Amanda in his pocket. 

It’s been more than a week since Connor was chosen as Tribute—the longest stretch of time he’s ever been truly alone. Nines has always said he wanted to be a combat teacher after the Reapings. Maybe that’s what he’s doing now; training as a Teacher’s Aide at the Academy. Amanda has always been strict on their education, never letting them direct any energy to life outside the Reapings until it was guaranteed. Unless Connor was helping her in her garden, of course. Those seem like one of the times Amanda was content to listen to Nines and Connor’s aimless ramblings.

Connor wonders if they miss him as much as he misses them.

The blaring trumpet of the Capitol anthem plays, and Connor turns his head towards the sky.

Only two deaths, surprisingly. The boy from District 4—the one who Connor killed—and Seonghyun from District 8—Markus’s district partner. She must have been the cannon they heard during the forest fire. Truly a horrifying irony, considering their entrance costumes.

When District 4’s face is aired, Connor notes that there’s none of the guilt he felt when he killed Chris or Rupert. Only hollowness and a sobering sense of acceptance.

Maybe it was the physical distance between them. He wasn’t close enough to hear the knife piercing muscle and skin, and he could only imagine that District 4 gurgles the blood which clogs up his throat. He wasn't close enough to truly process District 4 dying by his knife. He sees District 4’s name, but it doesn’t register like Chris’s did.

Maybe he’s better off if it doesn’t register. He’ll stay as just a blank name and a number in Connor’s head, and not another future which Connor has stolen.

He wonders if this means killing will be easier from now on.

The more he thinks about it, the distant his thoughts becoming—layering itself further and further away until it becomes a mild buzzing, numbing sensation that’s only interrupted by his stomach rumbling.

Surely, Allen would have found one or two sponsors by now. Which brings Connor back to the possible reasons he might be withholding things back if he did. Maybe he’s giving Connor a day before he sends over some food and water? Maye Allen will even gift Connor something that will help him escape the Career pack while they’re asleep? Sponsor gifts become exorbitantly more expensive as the Games go on, maybe he has faith in Connor to find his own way out now so they could save the money for later stages of the game?

Despite his hunger and his trepidation, the day’s events catches up to him, and he manages to fall asleep.

“—nor,” a voice so familiar whispers, Connor almost creaks his eyes open. “_Connor_. Wake up, Connor.”

Connor finally peels one eye open, and the sky is still dark, with the sun only starting to peep through. His eyes widen when he sees Markus on a tree across from him.

And his leg—instead the bright red patch of open, blistered flesh, Markus’s calf is completely healed.

He’s surprised the Careers hadn’t woken from Markus’s furious whispering, but one look down shows that all of them are asleep—including Carlos, who Connor assumes is supposed to be on watch with how he’s nodding off against the trunk. It’s possible that they’re high enough up in the trees that most of the sound won’t carry. Connor doesn’t want to risk it though, furrowing his brows and tilting his head in question.

Markus points up, and Connor sees it—a hive of tracker jackers, ten or so branches above him.

Tracker jackers are another one of the Capitol prized, lethal muttations. Genetically engineered wasps, much more aggressive than their parent bug. One or two stings can cause horrible pain and hallucination. Any more than that and you’d risk death by their poison.

Connor slides out one of his knives. The edge is serrated.

_Alright, Allen, _Connor thinks, as he climbs up the branches. _If you’ve been withholding any gifts from me, now’s the time to send them. _

Of course, there’s always the chance that Allen _hasn’t _been withholding any gifts—Connor just haven’t got any sponsors. In that case… surely Connor can’t be better off stranded in a tree with the Career pack hungry for his blood?

Markus has disappeared from his sight. As home as he is up on the trees, he’s probably already gapped to a safe distance. Tracker jackers aren’t like natural Vespidae, Connor remembers reading, they will veer far away from their nest as long as they have a target to hunt.

That’s a risk he’s willing to take. The majority of the hive will hunt the Career pack down, anyway.

He grips the handle of his knife, his hands throbbing from yesterday’s burns. Connor rests the knife against the branch. Steeling himself, Connor bears down with his knife, sawing back and forth through the branches.

They’re slower to notice him, compared to all the videos he’s seen of tracker jackers swarming their prey. It must because of the forest fire from yesterday—maybe the smoke sedated them somewhat. Whatever it is, Connor’s thanks his lucky stars. He focuses on the drag of his knife. Don’t look at the tracker jackers. Don’t look at how the branch starts to rattle—

Pain on his neck. He momentarily stops sawing so he can hold on to the tree as he rips the tracker jacker off him—

Another sting on his thigh.

Connor hisses in agony, sawing as hard as he could.

One or two more stings, and sharp, burning pain spikes into his bone marrow. But Connor ignores it, because he’s so close—_he’s so close—_

He hacks at the last bit of wood, and the hive plummets to the ground.

The buzzing grows furious, drowning out the shrieks and the screaming of the Career pack. Connor doesn’t dare look down. He can feel his body holding his dizziness at bay. He needs to be on the move, but he also needs the Career pack to _leave _so they can take angry cloud of tracker jackers with them.

Briefly, he hears someone screaming about a lake. That’s when Connor decides that it’s safe for him to climb down. He slides his knife back into its strap, and he forces himself to squint at his feet, even if his vision sways in a lopsided—square?—rhombus_? _

_Not the time, Connor. Keep climbing. _

What once was his biggest ally is now his biggest enemy. Connor feels like he’s been climbing down the tree for _forever _when a sudden spasm takes over his hands—

He lets go, and his feet slip.

“Shit!” Connor says, before he lands in a heap on the ground.

His body screams at him. Connor pushes himself to his knees—or he tries to. None of his limbs are listening to him, jerking whichever way that pleases them.

_Stand up_, Connor orders himself. _You don’t have time for this. Stand up, Connor Stern!_

His legs feel like jelly, but slowly he rises. It feels like the air gets heavier the further he stretches his body. He just wants to curl up on the ground and let the grass tickle his face. Like endless rows of toothbrush facing up. Since when did the grass look so funny anyway?

His arm jerks sideways. It feels like someone ripped a whole layer of skin off. Someone is tugging him, Connor realises, someone is trying to get him to move in a certain direction.

He throws a punch, almost tripping himself over from the momentum.

“—onnor? Connor—woah! Hey, now!” says a nice voice. A very nice voice. “Steady.” The nice voice catches his hand. “Steady. Keep it steady. It’s just me.”

Markus? Is that Markus.

Connor thinks it’s Markus. He wants Markus to be here. He likes Markus. He likes the way Markus says his name.

“I’m going to move you okay,” Markus says, looping Connor’s arms around his shoulder. “I’m going to get you somewhere—”

The freckles on Markus’s face starts crawling into his eyes. His beard looks like it’s made from a thousands of sharp needles.

Shuddering, Connor looks away, but his eyes are caught by the huge swelling in his hands. It’s oozing blue blood and it’s alternating between hot and cold with every second that passes. Connor turns his hand around. There’s a hole in the middle of his hand. His palm is also oozing blue blood.

He looks down and there’s a cavity in his sternum. Connor pokes a finger inside it, feeling around. It hurts when he digs in, but it hurts more when he doesn’t. More of that blue gloopy stuff globs on his finger. It stretches like cheese on Capitol pizza. Connor giggles as he pulls it up to his eye height.

Connor peeks a black shadow crawling towards his eyes. He jabs his finger—

“Let’s not do that,” Markus says, catching his hand and tucking it by Connor’s side.

Markus has both of his hands now. He has nothing to protect himself from—_it’ll hurt—_the trees—the trees are trying to sneak their branches under their skin and it’ll _hurt_, Connor wants to tell Markus. They want to melt their roots into their muscles and play them like a puppet.

Markus ignores his croaking though, even as shadows start creeping over his vision. So, hopelessly ignored, Connor settles to hanging over him like a rag-doll.

* * *

Amanda strokes back the stray fringe of his hair. She tucks it behind his ear, and the look on her face is softer than what Connor remembers ever seeing.

“I’m sorry, Connor,” she says. “I’ve dragged you both into this… Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“What’s wrong?” he hears himself ask—except, that’s not right. His voice is almost squeaky, much, much higher than he’s used to hearing in the morning. “Amanda, what’s wrong?”

His question only seem to make Amanda more distressed. “I’m sorry, Connor,” she says, again and again. “I shouldn’t have married your father before everything was done. I’ve brought nothing but the enemy’s eyes over our family. I’m so sorry, Connor. I’m so sorry.”

“Why do you keep saying you’re sorry,” Connor mumbles into his pillow, before yawning. “Can you tell me a story?”

“From tomorrow onwards, I’m enrolling you and Nines in the Academy,” Amanda says. “It’s going to be hard, and it’s going to be horrible. But this is one of the only ways I can ensure your best odds. I hope you can understand when you’re older.”

That’s Connor most hated phrase in the whole world. “Why can’t I understand it now?” Connor asks sullenly. “I’m smart. I can understand it if you tell me.”

“When you’re older,” Amanda says. “Promise me that you’ll focus on your studies, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I want it to be your only priority from here on out,” Amanda emphasises, tucking him deeper into his blanket. “Don’t let anything stop you from being the best.”

“I won’t disappoint you,” Connor promises.

Amanda only smiles, one of the saddest Connor can remember seeing. “I know you won’t,” she says. “I’m counting on you, Connor.”

_Connor, _he thinks, tonguing the top of his mouth. Funny how his name has a such nice rhythm to it.

_Connor. Connor. Connor. Connor—_

* * *

Connor jerks awake, with leaves sticking down his forearms. The first thing he does is check his pocket, and his picture is still there. Somehow, that manages to soothe his nerves.

How long has he been asleep? It felt like eternity and a blink at the same time. His dreams were glossy, and hazy. Although, the pain seemed fresh; he remembers convulsing from it—involuntarily and often. It felt like someone had strung him tight, snapped his tightest tendons and forced him to walk into a sea of saltwater. But it also felt like a distant memory—like a layer of glass separates him and the Connor twitching in pain.

Sleep still clings to his awareness, even now. The sun is gentler on his skin because of the trees shading him. There's a light breeze brushing against his cheeks, and there’s a low, pleasant hum of conversation in the edge of his hearing.

If Connor closes his eyes and lies back, it’s almost comfortable.

“Oh hey,” Markus says, putting down the long strands of tree fibre in his hands. “You’re awake.”

He helps Connor sit up, bringing a canteen up to his mouth. Connor feels more lively after a couple of swallows, washing away the bitterness in his mouth. He stops himself for finishing all the water, since he’ll need to ration it out for later. He brings a hand up to touch his sternum and finds nothing but his warm, firm flesh. All in one place. 

“How long was I out?” Connor asks. 

“Two days,” Markus says. “Allen sent some medicine but it wasn’t working as quickly as it should, so we had to scavenge for some leaves that would help with your tracker jacker stings.”

Connor’s about to ask who the ‘we’ of the equation were when he catches a small figure weaving fibres from the pile Markus left behind.

“Markus,” Connor says slowly. “Am I still hallucinating, or have you somehow acquired a child while I’ve been asleep?”

Lucy, the tribute from District 11, waves at him. “Hello,” she says shyly. 

Connor suddenly feels shy in return. “Hi.”

“How do you know she wasn’t the one who acquired us?” Markus says. “She led me to you, after all.”

Connor can’t dispute that. “Fair point.”

Then Markus gives him a _look,_ and Connor’s becoming much too familiar with his looks. This one is telling Connor to introduce himself, and he shouldn’t be afraid of Lucy because she’s not going to bite. 

Which is just ridiculous. Connor’s not _afraid_—he’s not afraid of anything! Especially of the gentle, tiny girl in front of him_—_if anything, Lucy should be afraid of _him _since he’s the Career Tribute around here—it’s just that Connor’s never really interacted with someone so young before. Not to mention someone who he didn’t necessarily have to charm for sponsorship or any other motive, really. 

“Hi,” Connor says, then he feels immediately stupid because—hadn’t he just said that before? “My name is Connor,” Connor says. “I’m from District 2.“

“I’m Lucy from District 11,” she says. “My district specialises in agriculture.” 

Connor nods. “Stone and masonry.” 

“Lucy’s part of our alliance now,” Markus says. “She’s the one who found your leaves too.” 

Connor expected it. The longer Connor hangs around Markus, the more prominent it becomes that Markus has a tendency to collect strays. 

“Thank you, Lucy,” Connor says. 

Lucy blinks. “Oh. Uhm—you’re welcome.”

“She’s not used to someone from District 2 thanking her and meaning it,” Markus whispers to him. “But she’ll get used to it.”

Connor wonders if District 2’s reputation really is that bad around the other Districts. Then again, they’re also known for training Peacekeepers. 

“Did anything else happen while I was asleep?” Connor asks, peeling off a layer of dead skin from his hands. 

Markus scowls at him and holds his hand in place. “The guy from District 6 died by the river.”

“Carlos Ortiz?”

“Yeah, him,” Markus says. “Died from the tracker jacker attack. There was another canon for a girl from District 3, but I’m not sure how she died.” 

“She probably died from the other half of the career pack,” Lucy says. “They were heading her way after the forest fire.” 

“How did you find out?” Connor asks. 

“I watch from the trees,” she says. “They never look up.”

“Lucy can fly from tree to tree like she’s got wings,” Markus says proudly. “She’s almost as fast as a bird.”

“That’s amazing,” Connor says sincerely, and Lucy ducks her head blushing. “Is that how you got the leaves too?”

Lucy shakes her head. “I just found them in a forest. Everyone carries them around in the orchards. Tracker Jackers leave a lot of nests there too.”

That reminds Connor—he looks at Markus’s calf in question. He can’t resist himself from reaching out and touching it almost in disbelief. It was a gaping red wound full of blisters when he last saw it. Now, it’s just smooth brown skin that’s a little bit red from how newly healed it is. When Connor presses his finger down, he feels muscles pushing back and bone underneath. 

“Unbelievable,” Connor says in awe.

“Hank,” Markus says.

Connor looks up, brows furrowing. “He sent you some medicine?”

“Burn cream. It’s what I used to heal part of your hands as well,” Markus says. “Amazing what Capitol technology can do. Aside from the tracker jacker stings of course.”

“It healed some of my burns, too.” Lucy holds her hands out. “You both have good sponsors.”

“Have you got any sponsors yet?” Markus says. 

“No,” she says longingly. 

“You will, I bet,” Markus says. “You’re resourceful, and more people will realise that when we get towards the end.” 

“You really mean it when you said you wanted to ally with me?”

“Of course, we do,” Markus says, and Connor’s more amused that Markus is speaking for the both of them. “We should shake our hands to make it official.” 

They could just shake hands one by one, but of course, Markus doesn’t do that. Instead, he adds a little flair to it, holding both his hands out in a criss-cross manner. Lucy giggles and mimics Markus with her hands. 

They both look at Connor expectantly.

Times like this, it’s very obvious that Markus is used to taking care of children much younger than them. 

Connor crosses his arms and they meet in a handshake full of snorts and giggling, resembling a human knot more than an alliance. 

* * *

Lucy contributes roots to the food haul while Connor keeps watch of their little camp, and Markus goes off to hunt for some game with the longbow he made in the forest—

“You made a what?” Connor asks incredulously. “How did you—_what_?”

“You heard right,” Markus says, holding back his smirk. “I made a longbow and fletched some arrows from some of the wood I found. Thanks for letting me borrow your knife, by the way.”

“You’re welcome,” Connor says, even though he was probably high as a kite on tracker jackers venom when Markus helped himself to his knives. 

That’s what an alliance is for, he guesses. 

“How long did it take?”

“Not that long. Kept me busy while you were out anyways.”

“I’m starting to think I was out for a much longer period of time than two days at this rate,” Connor says. 

Markus has a smug grin on his face.

“Should I be expecting a house next? Or an oven made completely from clay?”

Markus’s grin only deepens. “Bet they don’t teach you those kinds of things at the Academy huh, Careers boy?”

Connor’s realised his education outside of killing has been lacking since the first day in the Arena. But something tells him that to criticise the Academy in front of Panem would be dangerous, so he settles for definitely not-pouting. 

Markus is as attuned to their weighted silences as Connor is at this point. He quickly stands up and changes the subject. “I can’t get a full draw out of it but it’ll have to do. Besides, I’ve made some powerful bows from more unsuitable wood.”

Anyhow, Markus comes back with two whole grooslings, and Connor feels absolutely useless in comparison. They cook it over the fire, hoping that the combination of the dusk sky and dry wood will be enough to conceal the smoke, before stifling the fire after for insurance.

The groosling is one of the more decadent meals Connor’s had in the arena. Gamier than chicken, but just as fatty with grease and juices running down his fingers. He can only stomach a couple of bites before the richness starts making him a little sick.

Connor spies Markus pushing the other groosling leg in Lucy’s direction, so he also offers her his own. 

“Oh no,” she says. “This is more than enough.” 

“Have it,” Markus says. “We can always get more.” 

“I’m already full anyway,” Connor tells her, holding out his groosling leg for her. 

“Oh,” Lucy says. “Okay.” She’s already finished her leg a while ago, but she’s still hesitant when taking it from him. “Thank you. I’ve never had a whole leg to myself before.” 

“That’s…” Connor swallows. “You don’t get to eat the crops?” 

“That’s for the Capitol. You’d get punished for stealing the crops. The Mayor’s very strict about it,” Lucy says. 

“I bet he is,” Markus mutters, low enough so only that Connor can hear him. “Holed up in his Capitol-paid mansion, surrounded by his Capitol-paid servants.”

Connor brushes Markus arm, half in warning and half in comfort, but it’s not like Connor’s any better than the Mayor, is he? Nested as he was in District 2?

“By punished, do you mean a public whipping?” Connor asks. 

Lucy’s eyes widen. “District 2 have them too?”

Markus seems surprised as well. “Really?”

“Not often though,” Connor says. “It was mostly for when the stone quarry workers…” Connor trails off, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. “It was mostly for when the stone quarry workers were caught stealing,” Connor tries again.

“It happens all the time in ours,” Lucy says. “And it’s cruel; how some of them seem to enjoy punishing people like that..” 

Markus wisely keeps silent, and it’s probably best, since anything else would highlight how lax District 12 is regarding their poaching and illegal activities. Markus did mention that even several of the official bought the game which Markus sold in the Hob.

In fact, Connor’s not even sure if this whole conversation would be aired on television. So much of the Districts have been kept separate from each other. It’s clear that the Capitol wants to keep their knowledge and interactions of each other as minimal as possible.

Except when in the Games, it seems, since their little alliance isn’t the first in the Games’ history. Almost every year has some kind of inter-district alliance, although they’ve never differed as much as someone from District 12, 11, and 2.

“Do you get all the coal you want?” Lucy asks Markus. 

“No,” Markus says. “We have to buy it like everyone else does.”

Connor can see that Markus is skirting around the whole poaching thing. “Tell her about your cat,” Connor says. 

Lucy instantly perks up. “You have a cat?” 

“Yes, he does,” Connor says. “Pepsi, wasn’t it?”

Pepsi is one thing which guarantees a smile from Markus. “Yeah,” Markus says, his lips quirking up. “Pepsi. He’s a spoiled one. He’s gotten used to being carried around, that he makes a lot of racket if you don’t hold him. He almost brought hell over Hank’s geese, too.”

So Markus expertly diverts Lucy’s attention away from his full-time work with stories of Pepsi’s shenanigans. Afterwards, just before night covers the forest, Lucy suggests that they take stock of the food. Lucy lays out an admirable collection of nuts, greens, roots, berries, and mushrooms. Markus lays out a collection of his own roots and game, and Connor… 

Connor frowns when he has nothing to offer. 

Markus bumps his arms. “You were busy getting better,” he says. “Don’t sweat about it.”

Logically, Connor knows Markus is right. “You were as well,” Connor points out. 

“Careful, Connor,” Markus says. “Or I might think that you’re throwing a tantrum on me.”

As if Connor would ever be that undignified on camera. He does, however, put away the clump of grass he’s holding on a little too sneakily. 

“Someone in the orchards got stung by a tracker jacker once and it took them three days to recover with only the leaves helping to draw out the venom,” Lucy offers. 

Connor sighs. “I guess I’m pretty lucky in that aspect.”

They divvy up the food in case any of them gets separated. Lucy spreads out her equipment; a water skin, night goggles, a homemade slingshot, two pairs of socks, and a thick, sharp rock which Connor guesses she uses as a knife. 

Markus picks up the night goggles. “Are these sunglasses?”

“They’re night-goggles,” Lucy says. “They allow you to see when it’s completely dark. We use them in the orchard sometimes. I know that some of the Career pack has them.”

“Do you have any other weapons other than your slingshot and your rock?” Connor asks her. 

Lucy shakes her head. “This was the best I could do. I didn’t want to go into Cornucopia.”

“That’s probably the right idea,” Markus says. 

It was definitely not what they did though.

Connor slides another one of his knives from his sheath. He grips the blade in his and offers the handle to Lucy. “You should keep this,” he says. “Makes hunting and scavenging easier, at least.”

“Oh!” Lucy handles the knife gingerly. “Thank you.”

“Do you still have the one you borrowed?” Connor asks Markus.

“Yeah.”

“Keep it,” Connor says. “That way we all have one just in case.”

“I’m not going to say no,” Markus says. “But you sure you have enough to give out in the first place?”

“Should be enough,” Connor says, taking stock in his head. “I started with ten. One’s at the Cornucopia. Nine’s… in District 4. Eight is with Lucy, and Seven should be with you. So I have half-a-dozen left.”

“You think you’ll be okay with half-a-dozen?”

“Yeah,” Connor says. “Just…”

_Don’t expect him to kill everyone in the Games, _he almost jokes. That is, of course, before Connor realises that his kill count is at already at three. Four counting Carlos Ortiz, and he probably should. Connor did drop the nest on them.

Four people dead because of him. Four people who will never go home because of him.

Four people who will never feel the warmth of sharing stories with new friends because of him.

Someone touches his elbow. “We should get going,” Markus says, when Connor has stayed quiet for a little too long. “It’s getting dark. Lucy’s found a tree.” Markus tugs him again. “Hey,” he says gently. “What’s wrong?”

Connor blinks. “Sorry?”

“You look…” Markus makes a gesture at his face. “Troubled.”

Connor doesn’t think that he looks like anything other than his normal self. It’s worrying that Markus could see through him so easily though. Then again, Connor should really stop underestimating Markus and his abilities.

“I was just remembering the last time I slept in a tree,” Connor says.

_Cold, hunted, and alone, _he doesn’t say.

Although, Markus kept Connor’s backpack from before, so at least he has his sleeping bag now.

“It’s the safest place for us,” Markus says apologetically. “If it makes you feel better…”

Connor tilts his head.

“The fork is big enough for all three of us to sleep in,” Markus says, shuffling his feet. “It’ll be a bit of a squeeze but—”

That sounds good to Connor. “Okay.”

“—it’ll be warmer for Lucy too since we’re sharing a sleeping bag anyway—wait, okay?” Markus straightens up. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go.”

Lucy almost makes it a game, who can reach the fork the fastest, but Connor is content to watch back, considering that Markus and Lucy basically leaves him in the dust with their climbing skills within the first couple of seconds.

Connor is only slightly envious.

_Slightly _envious.

Besides, Connor gets the feeling that Markus misses being an older brother. Lucy has imprinted on him since the training centre. Their conversations are rapid fire. Their values are similar. They don’t have shared life experiences, but their childhood struggles are similar enough that Lucy and Markus always seem to understand each other on a fundamental level. They fit like two pieces of a puzzle. It’s heart-breaking that they met inside the Arena.

It’s a tight fit in the fork for all three of them, but it’s a comfortable one. Lucy is happy to tell them about her life and her friends in District 11. There’s a fist holding his heart tightly, and it squeezes harder every second which Lucy talks, because Connor knows that, outside the cameras, they’ll probably be the last people Lucy shares her stories with. Just like Markus and Lucy may be the last people he’ll share his stories with.

The anthem begins to play with no faces to showcase. Lucy snuggles up against Markus and falls asleep soon after. Once Connor is sure her breathing has fully evened out, he shifts to his side, so he can have a better view of Markus and Lucy on their backs.

“It’s dangerous, you know,” Connor says, his voice a soft rumble. “Getting attached.”

Markus doesn’t reply for a long while. Connor can imagine that he’s facing the side of Markus’s face which has his light-green eyes as opposed to his blue ones.

“It’s already too late for that,” Markus says. “Probably since before we realised that it was.”

Connor closes his eyes. “Yes,” he murmurs. “It does truly feel like it, doesn’t it? We haven’t even discussed what happens when we get to the end.”

A couple of seconds goes by, the sound of the forest swishing in the breeze slipping in between them. Connor almost thinks that Markus has fallen asleep—he’s flittering on the edge of his own—when Markus finally replies. His voice is soft, but full of stubborn resolve.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Markus says.

That seems to be the end of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of Amanda and District 2 will be revealed in later chapters. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and I hope you guys enjoyed!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A close call for everybody.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Possible Graphic Descriptions of Gore

A new day brings a new mindset and it glints off Markus’s eyes. He stands more refreshed, and head clearer than before. Lucy looks vigorous as well, probably from feeling safer than she has since the Hunger Games began. As for Connor; his joints are less stiff and his muscles are more limber. He wakes more hydrated and warm than he has in ages.

“We need to fight back against the Career pack,” Markus says, his hands clawing into the dirt. “If Connor’s recovered by now, chances are they would have either. How many of us are there, by the way? Do we know who’s left?”

“There’s eleven of us,” Connor says, tugging a root for their breakfast. “Zlatko and Trace from District 1, me and Tina from District 2, a girl I don’t recognise from District 4, Daniel and Emily from District 5, Ralph from District 7—”

“Me and Shaolin from District 11,” Lucy adds.

“And Markus from District 12.” Connor nods at Markus. “Aside from Ralph, the three of us, and Shaolin, everyone else is integrated into the Career pack. Is that right, Lucy?”

“That’s right,” Lucy says. “I saw the boy from District 5 guard the food supply two days ago, and Shaolin has camped in the high-grass. He won’t hurt us.”

“You sure?” Markus asks.

“I’m sure.”

“Alright,” Markus says. “We need to turn the tables on them before they can get any worse. Hit them where it hurts. Make it harder for them to hunt us down.”

Connor rubs the dirt between his fingers, indulging in the coolness and how it contrasts with the sun’s heat. “What exactly are you proposing?” he asks.

Markus grins, and Connor’s almost taken back by how mischievous and blinding it is. “It’s the Hunger Games… so, let’s make them hungry.”

“So we should take their food supply?” Lucy says. “What happens if they attack us?”

“If we lure them away from their camp first then they won’t have the chance,” Markus says. “When they’ve strayed far enough is when we’ll hit.”

“Hit them?”

“Burn the food supply, push it over, throw them into the river—I don’t know,” Markus says. “Whatever it is that we do though, we’ll destroy their food for good, and that should put them on even playing ground with the rest of us.”

“I think it’s a good plan,” Connor says. “Historically, the times where tributes from other Districts have won were times when the Career tributes suffered a massive food or water shortage.”

“Yeah, they’re absolutely useless at feeding themselves,” Markus says. “Except you, Connor. You’re one of us now. No offence to your past self though.”

“None taken,” Connor says, amused.

“Their camp is beside the lake,” Lucy says. “They usually leave a guard during the day.”

“So it could be any one of the Tributes,” Markus says.

“The whole set-up seems like a trap,” Connor says. “Doesn’t seem wise to leave everything out in the open like that.”

“I know, but I couldn’t get closer to see what it was,” Lucy says.

“You’ve already done a lot,” Markus says, and Lucy preens under his compliment. “This is valuable information.”

For a while, they focus on their digging, with Markus and Lucy picking up most of the conversation. Connor is happy to sit back and listen, letting their voices soothe him into a quite and rare kind of contentment.

Lucy is the eldest of five, they find out. There’s Lucy at twelve, John at nine years old, Shayla at eight, Peter at six and Maggie at five. Her whole face lights up when she talks about her younger siblings. Especially the times when their District halts their schooling to work on the orchards are more tolerable because they are there—

“They pull you out of school to make you work at the orchards?” Connor asks.

“Of course,” Lucy says. “During the busiest season, even Shayla’s class is pulled out of school and made to work in the orchard.”

Connor exhales harshly. “That’s crazy. You’re all so young.”

“'Old enough to be in the Hunger Games, old enough to work,’ is what people say back at home.”

“And your siblings?”

Lucy shrugs. “It’s training. Life is only going to get harder from there anyway.”

Still flabbergasted—and horrified—Connor turns to Markus. Markus only blinks back curiously at him. His nonchalance leads him to think that this kind of thing is common in District 12.

“Come on,” Markus says. “They probably do the same to the stone and masonry workers in your District.”

Swallowing a hard lump in his throat, Connor admits, “You’re probably right.”

God, Connor thought Career training was hard and demanding but he really had it easy, didn't he?"

Connor wonder how old Amanda was when she started working in the quarry. She’s never talked much about her past, other than to emphasise the privileged life Nines and Connor has—and she’s right of course; learning of the world outside their district only reinforced this knowledge—but the little parts which she did share were unpleasant at the least.

“Is John the same Jojo you told on me about when we first met?” Markus asks.

Lucy perks up. “It is!”

“Jojo’s a nickname. I’m guessing?”

“It’s what Shayla used to call him when she was very little. She couldn’t get the ‘n’ right and Jojo finally stuck.”

“I call Cole ‘Coco’ sometimes, but it’s mostly to annoy him,” Markus says. “Although he never seems to mind when North calls him that.”

"Is she pretty?"

"Of course."

Lucy laughs. "Then that's probably why."

And on their conversation goes, but Connor finds himself stuck on the thought of Lucy’s siblings.

It’s hard to forget how young Lucy is when her mannerisms and her observations—her uncannily _piercing_ observations—make her seem much wiser beyond her years. Yet, she’s so small and underfed that she barely reaches Connor and Markus’s chests.

Her siblings must be much smaller than her. Connor tries wrapping his head around that.

At least Nines is old enough to take care of himself. With Lucy gone, who will take care of her younger siblings?

The Hunger Games doesn’t shy away from death; they glorify in zooming into the faces of dead tributes, on top of replaying the most memorable deaths in the highlight reel. Connor can hardly remember himself at five—he tries imagining himself at five and having to watch Nines on TV. Would he even understand what’s going on? He probably would just tune it out and wait for Nines to come home so Connor can ask him questions.

He doesn’t know if it would make it better or worse.

With great will power, Connor stops his train of thought. The Games is already stifling enough as it is. He doesn’t need his own conniving mind working against him.

His stray fringe is flopping over his vision again. Connor blows on it with his mouth, but it only swings up and back down to itch near his eye—to his dismay.

“Here,” Markus says. “Let me.”

“Markus,” Connor warns. “Don’t—"

A handful of dirt is smeared on his cheek. Markus and Lucy breaks into giggles while Connor scuttles back with a scowl.

Connor narrows his eyes.

He launches a handful at Markus’s face. Lucy almost shrieks as some stray clumps land on her face.

A war—and many fistfuls of dirt—later, a precarious truce has been declared. They stumble onto a spring and eat their breakfast there. Connor offers to fill up Lucy’s waterskin for her without any prompt. Then he makes Markus begs with his eyes and quivering lip before he generously even _considers_ doing the same for him.

Markus’s puppy dog eyes are very compelling though. Ironically, he must have learned it from Pepsi.

Connor fills their canteen and waterskin, and adds a drop of iodine each. He swishes the bottle while he rues over what’s left. They’re close to running out. Connor wonders if there’s any in the Career pack’s supply which they can steal.

While he waits for their drink to sanitise, he washes the dirt out of his hair, scrubbing his face with his hands. Over the water dripping down his ears, Connor can hear a hushed exchange of whispers between Lucy and Markus while they eat.

“I wasn’t really sure if he actually liked you or not,” Lucy says. “But I think he does.”

“Who?” 

“Connor, of course.” 

Markus breaks into a coughing fit. Meanwhile, Connor forces himself to keep rinsing water over his hair, less they think that he’s listening in. 

His face, however, feels hotter than the forest fire they’ve outrun.

Connor keeps forgetting that they’re supposed to be _star-crossed lovers _in the Arena. He can’t even blame the fact that he’s been preoccupied about his and Markus’s continued survival because that strategy _is _a part of their continued survival. The world outside seems so disconnected from the Arena—isolated and chipped down to its bare necessities. A day in the forest has stretched longer than a lifetime outside of it. Maybe Markus’s mentor was right to be worried back in the training centre.

“Of course he likes me!” Markus blunders. “We’re… allies! And friends!”

Lucy hums. “Aren’t you supposed to be more than friends?” she asks. 

This is what Connor means about Lucy being wiser beyond her years. She’s clever and sly. Sometimes, she’s just downright omniscient. 

“Well, yes,” Markus says, a little flustered. “These couple of days have been pretty hectic. We’re taking it slow.”

“Slow,” Lucy says, and she sounds amused. 

“Very slow,” Markus reassures.

“Connor’s a lot nicer than the other tributes,” she says. “Much nicer than I thought a Career could be.”

“Yeah,” Markus says. “He is that.”

“And you guys are really good at reading each other.”

“Huh?”

“Like before,” she points out. “Connor was gloomy, so you stuffed dirt into his face and made him smile. And yesterday, when _you_ were gloomy, Connor changed the topic to Pepsi and made _you _smile.” 

Connor blinks, because he hadn’t even realised that Markus was trying to make him smile.

“You’re uncannily observant, Lucy,” Markus says, echoing Connor’s own thoughts. 

“Thank you,” she says. “I watch.” 

That seems like the most appropriate time to reinsert himself back into the conversation. Connor shakes his head back and forth before combing it back. He grabs their canteen and waterskins, and when he re-joins the circle, he deliberately sits beside Markus, close enough so that their whole arm is brushing. 

That fits the whole ‘going slow’ thing, right?

In all honesty, Connor has no frame of reference to compare these things to. He hopes he’s doing it properly.

“Hello,” he says. “I hope you guys didn’t eat everything without me.” 

Markus bumps his elbow. “If anyone here is more likely to eat everything then…” He trails off, blinking as Connor looks at him, chewing on the roots.

Markus’s facial hair has grown quite substantially, Connor notes. They’re close enough that Connor can point out which hairs of his stubble is slightly longer than the rest. He feels the sudden urge to pluck them out until they're all even.

“Then?” Connor prompts. “Markus?”

“Then…” Markus blinks. “Then it’d be you since Lucy and I are used to small portions,” he says finally. He clears his throat. “Sorry. I—uh—lost my train of thought for a moment there.” 

“Hmm,” Connor says. “Like the punchline to your joke, perhaps?”

Markus’s cheeks instantly pinkens. “Shut up.”

Lucy stifles a snort while Connor smiles. Really, Markus has a morbid sense of humour, though, being able to joke about him and Lucy becoming so used to starving.

“Jokes aside, are you alright?” Connor asks. “You’re not usually this winded. You should drink something and make sure you’re hydrated.”

Markus shakes his head. “I’m fine.” 

“You sure?” Connor asks dubiously. 

“I’m fine,” Markus insists. He turns to Lucy. “Weren’t you just telling me about your hobbies back home.” 

“I was,” she says, quite smoothly. “Do you have any hobbies, Connor?”

“Hobbies?”

“Things that you like do in your spare time?” she says. “Like how Markus paints.”

Connor shakes his head. “I have no talent for drawing.”

“You don’t necessarily need to be good at something to enjoy it,” Markus says, bumping his shoulder.

Lucy nods. “My brother likes mending clothes in his spare time, although he has no talent for it.”

“I guess,” Connor concedes. “Although I’d enjoy things a lot more if I excelled in it.”

Markus turns to Lucy. “Careers,” he explains.

Lucy hums in agreement.

Connor pushes Markus’s shoulder. “Training is a hobby then, I suppose. I like training with my brother.”

“You have a brother?”

“Yes,” Connor says proudly, “I’m part of a twin. The oldest, in fact.”

A section of his heart always aches whenever Nines and Amanda are mentioned but he should get used to it by now. In the space of a microsecond, he weighs the pros and cons of showing them his picture. He decides that his desire to share with Markus and Lucy outweighs his loathing at airing something so private in front of the whole Panem.

He slips out his picture, wrinkled and folded in quarters. “Here,” Connor says. “This is my brother and my mother.”

Markus has seen it before, but he was probably too polite to fully admire it considering how distressed Connor was at the time. As much as he makes fun of Connor’s mild mannerisms, Markus is the softer one out of the two of them. He’s sappier than a tree sap and much more of a gentleman than any tribute should be. He and Lucy looks at the picture, then peeks at his face, before ducking their heads down again.

Connor knows from experience that they’re trying to find the difference between him and his brother. He bites back his grin. “Spot the difference yet?”

Markus holds the picture beside his face.

Lucy looks back and forth. “You not in the picture?”

“It’s a series of family photos. Nines has one of me and Amanda, and Amanda has one with only the both of us.”

“If a stranger says they can tell the difference straight away then you know they’re lying.” Markus hands the photo back to Connor. “What about you, Lucy? What do you like to do in your free time?”

“I like singing,” she says. “We barely have free time, but we all sing back home, especially since the only one with an instrument is my grandfather, and he can only teach us one at a time. We sing at work too. That’s why I love your pin.”

“My pin?” Markus asks.

Lucy points to Markus’s chest, and—incredulously, Connor follows to where she’s pointing. There, underneath a folded lapel is a bright gold mockingjay pin. Connor straightens his jacket for a better look

“Oh! my pin,” Markus says. “I almost forgot about it.”

“Have you been wearing it all this time?” Connor asks, almost annoyed with himself. “I can’t believe I haven’t noticed it till now. That’s… unusually careless of me.”

“We did have much more pressing matters to worry about,” Markus points out. “I didn’t know you have mockingjays back in District 11.”

“They’re my friends,” Lucy says. “Like the trees during a sunny day. I teach them a song and they sing it back to me. It’s also how they carry messages for me.”

“Messages?” Connor asks, grimacing. “Like jabberjays during the war?”

“Sort of,” Lucy says. She looks up and when she notices a flock of mockingjays on a nearby branch, she says, “Watch this.”

Lucy sings a four-note run, her voice clear, sweet, and controlled. One mockingjay picks it up, then another, and another, one bird feeding into the next one until a cacophony has risen up. Between the layers of chirping is the main melody—distinct enough to be recognisable.

“Wow,” Markus whispers.

“That’s amazing,” Connor says.

Markus sings his own four-note run, and the birds echo it back. It merges with Lucy’s, matching in harmony. Connor knows, then and there—without needing Markus to tell him so, that music comes as naturally to him as breathing.

It takes him a moment to notice that Markus and Lucy is staring at him. “Something wrong?”

“Aren’t you going to try?” Lucy says.

Connor clamps his jaw shut.

Singing? He can hum. Back in the training centre, he tried to sing Markus a District 2 folk song… Markus almost fell off the climbing net and broke his neck.

"Yeah, Connor,” Markus says, biting in his cheek. “Why don’t you sing for us?”

He looks like one of the squirrels he hunts for their dinner.

Connor wishes they were back on the training nets. If only so that Connor can push Markus off of it. 

“It’s better for everyone that I don’t.” Connor squirms under her questioning stare. “I can’t hold a tune… I’m practically tone deaf.”

“You should give it a try,” Lucy insists. “We can use it as a signal. To let each other know that everything’s okay.”

“It’s definitely not okay,” Connor mutters. “Nothing is okay if I have to sing about it.”

“What was that, Connor?” Markus asks innocently.

Connor throws him a look that hopefully says, _Better watch where you sleep tonight. _

Markus raises his eyebrows and tips his head at Lucy, and Lucy—Lucy is looking at him with such wide eyes and a hopeful expression. Marring such a hopeful expression would be nothing but criminal, and Markus knows it. Connor can hear his voice as if he spoke the words himself.

_You want to be the one who breaks her heart? _

Sighing, Connor breaks from their stare off, finally conceding.

He takes a deep breath in.

* * *

“Okay,” Lucy says, face red, wiping a tear form her eyes. “Alright. No singing.”

The flock of mockingjays have taken flight in the middle of his impromptu concert. Beside her, flopped on the ground and on his back, Markus wheezes his agreement.

Connor pulls himself away from multiple fantasies of throwing Markus off a cliff. “I can whistle,” he offers. “I can hold a note _and _keep it in tune.”

“A miracle.”

“You don’t get to talk,” Connor tells Markus. “We’re not friends anymore.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.”

Connor ignores him.

“Whistling is good,” Lucy says. “I can work with whistling.”

* * *

The plan to even the battle grounds with the Career tributes commences after lunch. Markus helps set up the first two campfires, and Connor and Lucy will build the third one on their own. The fires will draw out the Career pack while Markus deals with their food supply. They’ll meet in the site where Lucy and Markus ate their first meal together. Which Lucy will guide him to, since Connor was still high on tracker jacker venom at the time.

“You’ve got enough food and matches, right?” Markus asks, hands on Lucy’s shoulder. “What about water? Maybe you should take back the night goggles. And take my sleeping bag too. In case we don’t meet each other by tonight.”

Lucy shakes her head. “It’ll serve you better.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure,” she says. “Both will. Plus, I can just share with Connor.”

This is news to Connor, but it’s not like he minds.

“We’re fine, Markus,” Connor says. “There’s more risk for you going into their camp than there is for us. The Careers would need to find us first to hurt us.”

Markus thins his lips. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Remember,” Lucy says. “When the mockingjays sing, it means we’re okay. We just can’t get back right away.”

“Right,” Markus says. “Just don’t let Connor sing. Or else I might think that you’re really in trouble.”

“I retract all goodwill towards you,” Connor tells him. “I hope you trip and land on your face.”

That actually puts a genuine smile on Markus’s face. “Yeah, well—_oof_.”

Lucy has thrown her arms around him. Markus shares a hesitant look with Connor before he hugs back, holding her tight. Then he melts, and he lets his worry and all his hope filter into his hug.

“I’ll see you at dinner,” Markus says.

Lucy nods in his chest, giving one last squeeze before they separate.

Then it’s Connor’s turn, and Connor doesn’t know what to say. The day before entering the Arena, they knew they’d see each other again in the Games, so that goodbye didn’t feel final. Then there wasn’t a goodbye at all when the Connor lured the Career pack away from Markus. Connor just did it.

He chews on his lips, and his palms are suddenly sweaty. Should he hug Markus like Lucy did? He would like to hug Markus, but they’re going slow, aren’t they? Is hugging part of going slow?

Markus is only slightly taller than him. When they’re standing in front of each other, their eyes are at the same level.

“I can hear you thinking,” Markus finally says.

“How rude of me,” Connor says, his mouth drying. “I’ll try and think quieter for you.”

Markus nods, wiping his palm down his side. “Thank you.”

Then they're back to their awkward staring, two bodies stuck between motion and hesitation.

“We’re making a big deal out of this,” Markus decides. “We’ll see each other again soon anyway.”

“Yes,” Connor says. “Of course.”

Markus offers him a handshake, reminiscent of their goodbye back at the training centre. Reminiscent of how they’re whole alliance began, really. Connor can’t help but stare at Markus’s hand and feel something light flutter up his chest.

Throwing all good sense out of the window, Connor pulls Markus into a hug.

He’s a bit rusty; he doesn’t really hug anyone else other than Nines and Amanda, but he keeps his hold firm and tight. After the initial shock, Connor can feel Markus squeezing back. Connor even indulges himself; he closes his eyes, so that Connor can keep this memory tucked safe in his mind.

The alliance wasn’t going to last forever. They should get used to separating and working apart. But knowing in theory is different to practice—which is completely different to saying goodbye. This is the first time they intentionally part ways with the uncertainty that something catastrophically horrible could happen. This could be the last time they talk. They might never see each other again.

_But they will_, Connor reassures himself, _He’ll see Markus again._ Markus is resourceful, and above everything else, though, he’s a survivor, and Connor will see him again.

“Stay safe,” Connor whispers. “I’ll see you for dinner.”

Markus gives him a nod, and Connor doesn’t know why it’s hard to peel his arms back, but it is. He’s glad no he’s not the only who’s having trouble. Markus has to step back until Connor isn’t in his reach anymore.

* * *

Once Markus’s back disappears into the forest, Lucy and Connor takes turns counting to sixty. It grows old, very quickly, so they harvest nearby for roots and bush berries. Connor only collects the ones which Lucy is absolutely certain aren’t poisonous. Then, they set fire to their first distraction and moves towards the second.

Markus wasn’t kidding about how Lucy travels—she leaps from one branch to another as if she really had wings. Connor sticks to the ground—it’s the only way he can keep up. They set fire on the second location and makes way to their third.

The tension twisting their shoulders dissipates with the more distance they gain. Lucy starts pointing out the bushes she harvests back home, and pointing out the ones which caused havoc on Jojo and Shayla when they accidentally ate it.

Connor keeps one ear out for her stories and the other for their surroundings.

No canon yet.

Still outnumbered by enemies in the Arena—but Markus is alive. 

It doesn’t take long to get the fire set up. Connor is on the verge of striking a match when he sees a shadow in the corner of his eye.

Connor moves on instinct. He tackles Lucy to the ground.

“Lucy, watch out!”

His shoulder hits the ground before anything else does. He curls, making sure that his body is covering Lucy’s, and he rolls two meters away from where an arrow has buried itself on the ground.

There’s ringing in his ears. That was such a close call. Connor quickly jumps to his feet, and Lucy scrambles behind him. He can feel Lucy clutching at his jacket as he slides out his knife.

“Tina!” he calls out. “Tina! I know you’re there.”

No answer from the woods. Not in front of him, or above him.

His senses ramp into overdrive, cataloguing each noise; it’s sound level, texture, timbre and direction of origin.

“What do you want?” Connor yells out.

Still no answer. Connor can hear nothing but the forest and dread hardening to stone in the pit of his stomach.

Tina could kill them both if she wanted to—her arrows flies further and faster than his knife. And although killing a fellow District tribute before being in the final two is heavily frowned upon, they’re further enough in the games that many tributes would have risked the stigma and disdain for the victory. 

Connor presses Lucy closer to his back. “Well?”

Tina steps out, dirty, ragged, and hair tied in a messy side-braid. Her bow is fully drawn, the string denting her check, and she’s pointing it right at Connor’s throat.

An arrow through his throat. Connor wonders if it will be a fast death. Like the boy from District 4.

“Where is Manfred?” she asks.

Connor has three choices here; both lying and keeping his silence will keep Tina on her guard. Telling the truth will shift all the power into her hands, but it will lessen the chances of Tina lashing out from feeling trapped.

“Out,” Connor decides. “Where’s the rest?”

Tina doesn’t answer. “If he takes a shot at me, I’m letting the arrow go.”

“Kill me, then,” Connor says. “Let the arrow go free and become the most disliked tribute of District 2.”

“Funny how you’re getting us mixed. You chose outsiders over us.”

Connor shrugs his shoulder. “Better than choosing someone who would stab me in my sleep.”

“Maybe I’d use you both as bait and kill Manfred myself,” Tina says. “Killing the only tribute with an 11 in the most recent Hunger Games. It’ll make into the history books. Step aside, Connor.”

“You don’t want to do that, Tina,” he says slowly.

“Cut with this self-less bodyguard act,” Tina says. “You’re just as ruthless as the rest of us.”

Connor stiffens. “At least, I’m ruthless against people who’ve at least passed puberty. She’s just a child.”

“She’s an enemy.”

“She’s twelve.”

“And a _tribute_,” Tina argues back, but Connor can see her finger shake slightly. “She’s playing the Games as much as any of us. The fact that you’re putting yourself in front of her just shows it.”

“But she didn’t volunteer, did she?” Connor says. “She didn’t sign up for this. Not like we did.”

Tina doesn’t reply.

A shock-wave travels through his body. _He wouldn’t mind if Lucy wins the Hunger Games,_ Connor suddenly realises. Letting Lucy walk out of the Arena alive—back into the arms of Jojo, Shayla, Pete and Maggie—something puts Connor’s chest at ease from the thought. One injustice righted by his hand. Doing something right in a world which constantly pushes him the other direction and not regretting it.

Even though it would mean his own death.

_But you can’t truly be bothered about something if you’re dead, can you?_

“When we were twelve, the Academy had a wrestling competition, do you remember?” Connor says, quickly. “Gavin won first place and you won second. But you were so annoyed, that you tackled him off the podium, and now you’re friends.”

Tina grits her teeth. “Stop.”

“You broke your leg and you had a green cast. The whole Academy class signed it and you had it for months; you had to sit on the side as we all went swimming—”

“I said stop!” Tina interrupts him.

Connor shuts his mouth.

Tina and Connor are caught in a showdown. Not the one expected from two Career tributes, but one as inevitable as the other.

The longer Tina takes to shoot, however, the more confident Connor grows. Tina’s ruthless, but she’s not heartless. Doubt creeps in her mind. She was probably like the others; volunteering without truly _knowing _what it’s like to kill or be killed. She tutors, back home, for kids that are only a year older than Lucy. Even though there’s still a disconnect because of their different Districts—surely, Tina would see why it would hurt _not _to keep Lucy alive.

Finally, Tina puts her bow down, unnocking her arrow.

She doesn’t relax her stance. Although this battle has been won, the war rages on.

Connor feels like he can breathe again. He makes a show of sliding his knife back into his sheath, although he carefully keeps Lucy covered behind him. “We both have common goals,” he says. “There’s no reason we can’t have an alliance.”

Tina raises an eyebrow. “No, thank you.”

“You’re always wandering off alone,” Connor points out. “I think I know why; you are Zlatko’s biggest threat. Trace won’t turn on him—they’re too close at this point. When the Career pack has finished with everyone else, Zlatko would want you gone first. turn on you the moment you let your guard down. Right before everyone else turns on him.”

“It’s true,” Lucy says softly from his back. “When Zlatko and Trace wanders off on their own, it’s because they’re trying to decide how to get rid of you and District 5’s tributes. They were thinking of letting you take poisoned food, or have Trace separate you from your bow while you were sleeping and work from there. I heard them talking during the first days of hiding in the Arena.”

Tina looks conflicted, and it’s because of the scenario Lucy described is all too plausible.

“We both want Zlatko dead,” Connor says. 

"I'm not trading my biggest enemy for the next."

"You don't have to," Connor says. "Just don't step in and kill us before we can kill him." 

As if on cue, an explosion booms through the forest. The timbre of it; it's deeper and louder lasting a millisecond longer than the official cannons used in the Arena. 

Connor's breathing stutters. Immediate fear claws it way in before Connor can quash it down. 

_It’s just an explosion, _Connor tells himself. _There’s no cannon yet. _

By the way Lucy tightens her hold on Connor's jacket, she's probably thinking the same thing. 

"That would be Markus right now," Connor bluffs. "He's dealt with all your food supply. What will you eat for tonight? What about tomorrow? And the next? You see, we Careers, we're not really good at feeding ourselves, aren't we? Last the next few days and I'd wager that you would have outlived Zlatko. That will be our biggest threat gone."

Tina draws her bow at him. "Give me your bag."

Connor stiffens. He almost automatically says 'no,' but he stops himself. "I will on one condition."

"And that is?"

"If you leave right after."

“What about District 11,” she says. “What’s in her bag?”

This time, Connor doesn’t stop himself. “No.”

“No?”

“How do I know that you won’t shoot her down the minute she’s in your sight? I’m already giving you my bag,” Connor says. “There’s enough food in there that it’ll last you three days.”

Three days if Tina knows how to ration herself. Which Connor doubts she does. Tina’s a resourceful, however, and a fast learner. She’ll figure something out.

After a terse few seconds, Tina nods. "Fine. Give me yours and I’ll leave."

Under the heavy weight of her arrow pointed at him, Connor slips his backpack of his shoulders. His food, his sleeping bag, his canteen; everything he's been hoarding up on these past few days—his gut revolts at the idea of handing his bag over to another person. It's the bag in payment for Tina leaving, though, which makes Connor toss his bag towards Tina. 

The moment Tina drops her bow so she could grab the bag, Connor arms himself, but she doesn't raise her bow again. She stands there, looking almost a little hesitant.

“It’s nothing personal, Connor,” Tina says. “It just the Games.”

Before he could reply, she sprints into forest.

Her back—with his bag slung across it, Connor notes woefully—disappears into the bushes. The rustling of her voyage grows further and further away. He waits, counting out a minute once the forest falls silent. Then, only then, does he let Lucy go from behind him.

_Strange_, Connor thinks. _That almost sounded like an apology. _

Lucy comes around to face him, but she doesn’t let go on the hold she has on his jacket. “Was that really Markus? That noise?”

“Tina seemed to think so,” Connor says. “She didn’t even question it, so it must what they were using to protect their food supply.”

Lucy’s on the verge of saying more, but then the cannon booms and she jolts. 

“Connor…” Lucy gulps. “Do you think…” Her lips quivers. “_Connor_…”

Connor almost forgets to breathe. “We don’t know that.”

Lucy wipes her eyes with the back of her sleeve “But it could be.”

“Or it could always be another person,” Connor says. “Come, Lucy. We’ll set the fire going and find out for ourselves.”

“What if it _is _Markus?” Lucy says, unbearably shaky. “What if he’s…”

“We can’t afford to think that,” Connor says. “What if it isn’t? What if he’s still alive. He’s smart, Lucy. He’ll come back to us.”

Connor knows, of course, that it takes more than brains to survive the Arena. It takes brains and an immeasurable amount of luck. Lucy’s giving voice to one of Connor’s worst fears right now. What if she’s right? Maybe he should hug her. That will make her feel better.

Lucy’s eyes are already glassy and red, but she nods determinedly. Connor tugs her into a hug, and she squeezes him tight.

“Markus is counting on us to set the third decoy,” Connor says. “The faster we do that, the faster we can go to the meeting place. We can wait for him there, okay?”

Lucy sniffles before she nods again.

Connor doesn’t know what to do if Markus ends up being another lifeless body laid out in the Arena. He hasn’t realised how much he’s looked to Markus for—not just for his instincts, but for his company, his kindness, his sharp observations, and the quiet conversations which put his nightmares at bay.

Now they’re down one sleeping bag, one canteen, and a third of their food. The bottle of iodine is still safely tucked in Lucy’s bag, so they can still purify their water supply. He’s looking at another night shivering in the trees, but maybe he can leech some body heat with Lucy and—

Connor’s thoughts stutter for a moment.

_No, _Connor says, remembering the crawling trees and the blue blood pouring from his sternum. _It’s not real until he has confirmation._

Markus is not dead until his face lights up the sky. Connor refuses to believe otherwise.

* * *

The journey to their meeting point is long and tense. Lucy sticks to the ground—close to Connor—and it eases a tight knot inside him to have her in his sight. Usually, Lucy would fill the silence with stories of her life back in District 11 but the volatile mix of exhaustion and wariness have left her wearier than usual. Even their walking pace slows as they begin nearing their meeting point.

It’s late afternoon by the time Lucy begins singing her four-note tune for the mockingjays to carry down their path. The mockingjays happily chirp amongst themselves, it’s songs fluttering to life.

No response from Markus.

They wait for a long moment before Lucy repeats herself. Still no response.

They’ll need to start looking for a tree to sleep on, and find enough water for tonight and tomorrow. Yet, Connor can’t bear tearing them from this spot. They can wait for a couple more minutes. What’s the harm in waiting a little longer?

For the fifth—sixth?—time since they’ve arrived, Lucy sings her four-note tune into the trees.

Another bout of hopeless silence.

Markus’s four-note turn echoes back.

Lucy bolts from her seat. _“Markus!”_

Connor almost bolts himself, but Markus has become more gaunt in the space of time they’ve been apart. There’s a hollowness to his cheeks and eyes, and his skin is paler than usual.

“Hi,” Markus says, as Lucy collides into him. “Sorry I made you worry. I had to make sure no one was following me.” He hugs Lucy tighter. “Was everything okay on your end?”

“We had a minor incident with the other tribute from my District.” Connor hesitates, before putting a hand on Markus’s arm. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“Likewise.” Markus’s hold on Lucy tightens. “You guys aren’t hurt, right?”

“Connor saved me,” Lucy says, much to Connor’s surprise.

Markus tilts his head at Connor, gracing him with a relieved mind. “That doesn’t sound minor to me.”

“Well,” Connor says. “No one died.”

“Exactly why it doesn’t sound minor to me,” Markus says, then he leans down. “Sorry, what was that, Lucy?”

“What happened over there, Markus?” Lucy asks, removing herself so that she’s not mumbling into Markus’s jacket. “What was that explosion? Was that really you?”

“Yeah, it was me,” Markus says. “They rearmed the landmines and planted it around where they keep their supplies.”

“_Landmines?” _

Markus grimaces. “Turns out Zlatko likes to tinker with technology.”

_Among other inanimate things, _Connor can almost hear Markus say. _And living creatures. _

“I’m guessing that he either learnt from District 3’s tribute before the Career pack killed her or a sponsor gave him the tools for it,” Markus says. "A bag of apples was jutting out. I shot the net holding them and the apples set off the landmines."

Connor feels something inside him loosen. "So the cannon was for someone else."

"Yeah." Markus's face folds into a flat and distant expression. "The girl from District 4."

There's a lot more to this story than what Markus is telling. Markus looks gaunt and shaken up—his skin paler than he was after the jabberjay incident. He’s probably still trying to process things himself. Connor won’t prod him; Markus will tell him when he’s ready.

“I lost my bag to Tina unfortunately—the other tribute from my District,” Connor says when Markus gives him a questioning look.

“It was the only way to get her to go,” Lucy says.

“I was hoping you’d grab some extra supplies before destroying them…?” Connor says.

Markus ducks his head sheepishly. “Sorry about that.”

Connor’s stomach drops in disappointment, but he shakes his head, his mind already whizzing with possibilities. “That’s okay. It wasn’t necessarily your mission to anyway. We’ll just… Maybe Allen could send me something—or—I’m not sure…”

“Hey, it’s alright, Connor,” Markus says. “We’ll be more vigilant whenever we find a source from now on. You can just drink from my canteen and we’ll lay out the sleeping bag like a blanket. We’ll fit if we scoot really close together.”

“You can always use my waterskin too,” Lucy says, finally pulling away from the hug. “And I know how to make a water container from dry logs. The only problem is that we’ll need a fire to hollow out the wood.”

“That’s something we can cover during dusk time,” Markus says. “Or make our own distractions again. Even if we risked it during the day, there’s a chance the Career pack might not even chase us, not after all the decoy we fooled them with today. They’ll be much busier trying to survive themselves now.”

“Okay,” Connor says, breathing in deeper. “Okay.”

Connor feels a little foolish. Markus is the one who looks upset and Lucy was almost killed earlier on, yet they are the ones who end up soothing Connor’s worries when it should be the other way around.

“Should we try and find somewhere to camp then?” Connor asks, 

Markus nods. “The sooner we get away from this area the better. Could you…” Markus gestures Connor towards him. “Could you stand over here for a second?”

An odd request, but Connor doesn’t see why not. Now that Markus has pulled all their attention to it though, Connor can’t help noticing how Markus keeps tipping his head, so that the left side of his face is always closer to the person speaking.

“Were you injured in the blast?” Connor asks. “You look unharmed, but you seem to be favouring your left ear.”

“I think… my right ear have been deafened from the blast. It won’t stop ringing earlier before, and now, it’s just dullness.”

“Oh dear,” Lucy says.

“I’m lucky it wasn’t both. The explosion was bigger than what I thought,” Markus says.

“How is your balance?” Connor asks.

“I’ll rest when we got somewhere safe,” Markus says. “We should go.”

Markus is about to say something, he’s poised on the edge of blurting it out to Connor like he always does in the training centre, but one look at Lucy standing close and he settles for chewing on his lips in silence.

They’ll have to hold their conversation until Lucy’s asleep then. Connor has a feeling it has something to do with District 4’s death—she most likely died form the explosion which Markus had set off, perhaps. Markus is most likely dealing with the guilt—the hollowing guilt of being a killer, something Connor is achingly familiar with.

Markus’s gait is tense, but he unwinds when Connor stands closer to his deaf side. Connor remembers briefly reading about this. Having both ears helps with sound depth-perception and balance. He probably wants Connor to keep an ear out where he couldn’t.

Connor sticks near when they start moving and Markus throws him a grateful look. They’re quiet when they eat dinner; a blackberry bush Lucy remembers passing by the first time she and Markus met supplemented by the flowers, roots, and a little bit of rabbit in Lucy and Markus’s bag. It fills him up enough. That’s all he can ask for.

Connor can’t help but selfishly long for the groosling Markus caught the other day though. He feels guilty for wasting his time wanting something so trivial when he’s lucky enough to even food at all, but his mind keep wondering to something juicy, and warm. Something salty and rich to blunt the edges the forest has sharpened in him.

“Were you close to the Tribute in your District?” Lucy asks suddenly. “You knew a lot about her life.”

Pursing his lips, Connor says, “Not really. As much as any other classmate would, perhaps. We’ve been in the same class for almost eight years.”

Tina’s an only child, if he recalls correctly. The golden child of a family from wealthier section of District 2. Connor wonders how her parents are dealing with the situation, watching their only child on screen, realising that the Games were nothing like they’d thought it’d be, especially when it’s your child in fighting for her life on TV. 

“I can’t decide if it’d be better or worse to have a friend be Reaped beside you,” Markus says.

“Worse because they’ll die with you,” Connor says.

“I think it’s better because then you both won’t die alone,” Lucy says.

Markus almost laughs. “That’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

“Having someone you can trust is a definite plus,” Connor says, thinking of his time being chased by the Career pack. “Although it’s going to be difficult to part ways once the Games calls for it.”

“There’s always the option to stay together,” Markus says, knowing that it reflects their own situation. “Stay till the very end. Who knows. This year might be the year they have more than one victor.”

“I’d like that,” Lucy says. “A happy ending.”

Connor shakes his head. “The Gamemakers would never allow it.”

“And why not?”

“They always have just the one victor.”

“There’s always a first for everything. Keeps things fresh—shakes things up a little.”

“Or they’ll get rid of us earlier so that more airtime can be spent on their final victor.”

“They could,” Markus says. “There’s nothing we could do to stop it if they did anyway. Staying together, however, is something we can do. It’s the Gamemakers’ job to whittle down the tributes. I don’t see why we have to do it for them. We’ve already done enough as it is.”

It’s such a very Markus answer. Connor can’t help stifle an exasperated smile as he looked down.

But maybe Markus has a point. Connor wouldn’t mind at all if Markus and Lucy sticks with him for the rest of the Games. 

“I think it’s time we go to sleep,” Markus says, nodding to where Lucy is yawning.

Connor slings Lucy’s bag around his shoulder and follows their lead.

Climbing up the tree Lucy has chosen takes Markus longer than what it should have. They’re so high up that Connor is almost anxious at looking down. Markus unzips his sleeping bag, and—as Markus said—when it’s unfolded, it’s big enough to cover the three of them.

Lucy has already assumed the same position as yesterday, cuddling herself to Markus’s chest, and pushing Markus into the middle of the fork.

There’s a small kernel of uncertainty in him—about boundaries which Connor wouldn’t want to push against, and ‘_how close’ _is ‘_too close_’—but they are supposed to be star-crossed lovers, aren’t they? Connor likes to think that they’re friends too. The kind he’d never get tired of being with. After all they’ve been through, even if they’ve never really explicit said they were, Connor considers Markus one of his close friends—if not the closest outside of Nines. Huddling and hugging should be okay, right?

Connor slides himself under the sleeping bag. Markus exudes an exquisite amount of warmth, and Connor burrows in until his head is lying on Markus’s shoulder.

Frankly, they all smell terrible, but Connor is fairly accustomed to the scent. Every smell seems to drown in the pungency of the forest anyway, so that doesn’t matter. What matters is that Markus is warm, firm, and comforting. His body moulds itself under Connor’s weight.

Connor could sigh. He’s definitely slept in worse places before. 

“Enjoying yourself over there?” Markus asks, from his helpless, flat position under them.

Lucy giggles and only snuggles deeper.

Connor peeks at Markus’s face. He can’t fully tell in the dark, but—are Markus’s cheeks red all of a sudden? Is he overheated already?

Surely, he can’t be. The forest wind is starting to settle in, and Connor can feel it biting against his exposed skin. “I hope you don’t mind,” Connor says, and follows Lucy’s lead in basking in the cosiness of their huddle pile.

Markus clears his throat. “Can’t say that I’ve acted as a bed for two people before.”

“If it’s any consolation, you make a great bed,” Connor tells him. “You’re very warm and soft.”

“Very soft,” Lucy agrees.

Markus sighs in defeat, but he shifts himself until his arm is lying comfortably behind Connor’s back. Connor shifts his head down, and he can feel the subtle rise and fall of Markus’s breathing, It’s steady rhythm lulls Connor into a rare sense of security. If he just focuses on Markus’s breathing and the warmth surrounding the blanket, Connor could pretend like he’s back home—that his hands are clean, and he never entered this horrible forest in the first place.

Soon after, the sky fades into black. The Capitol anthem starts playing through the speakers. Connor doesn’t mention the slight stutter in Markus’s breathing when the girl from District 4 stares down at them.

* * *

It’s still dark when Connor wakes up, his cheek pressed against his own arm. Somehow, Markus has managed to slip out from between them. He’s sitting at the edge of the fork, watching the sky with his feet hanging down. Carefully, as to not wake up Lucy, Connor shuffles out from their sleeping bag, and approaches Markus’s slowly from his left side.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Connor asks, like Markus did the first night in the Arena.

Markus doesn’t answer straight away. He does make space for Connor to sit beside him—which Connor does, although he doesn’t sit too close to the edge like Markus is doing.

“So they know whoever detonated the landmines survived,” Markus says. “They’ll be hunting for us, but we don’t have to worry much. Even with their night goggles, they won’t be able to find us here. We’re too high up.”

Everything that Markus is saying is true, of course, but Connor gets the sense that Markus is saying this to fill up space. Giving himself time. Mustering up the resolve he needs to say whatever it is he’s going to say.

“How does your ear feel?” Connor asks.

Markus tips his head to the side. He palms his ear once or twice. “It’s alright,” he decides. “I guess… I’m lucky to have one still working.”

“Maybe someone will hopefully sponsor an hearing aid.”

“Doubt it.” Markus frowns. “I don’t think anyone will be able to afford the price of that.”

“They might if we last until the further stages of the Games.”

Markus’s frown only grows deeper.

Oh dear. Connor’s not doing very well with this comforting thing, is he?

Better change the subject. “I’d never have imagined that the place I would feel safest is on top of a tree,” Connor says. “It’s a good thing you drilled as much climbing into me as you did in the training centre.”

Markus stifles a laugh. “I bet you didn't think it was going to be useful at all but you were too polite to tell me so."

"I thought it would be useful." Connor huffs. "I just wasn't sure quite how much."

“I know, I know.” Markus leans into Connor's side. "I'm just teasing you, Connor. I know you're not like the others. You wouldn't be here if you were.”

Still, Connor frowns. “I wish I could’ve helped more.”

A line in Markus's forehead dips. “What do you mean though? You’ve helped plenty”

“I knew next to nothing about surviving in this place before you. Certainly nothing new to contribute compared to you and Lucy,” Connor confesses. “In fact, all I’ve done is lost us a third of our supplies.”

“Don’t say that.” Markus shakes his head. “You saved me and Lucy, and you’re brushing it aside like it’s nothing when it's not. How else did you expect things to go?”

“Such that we still have all of our food, water, sleeping bags and more.” Connor curls a finger into his stray fringe and tugs. The slight sting of his hair pulling on his scalp eases his nerves somewhat. “Of course, I’m not saying that I regret what I did—saving you and Lucy; they will always be paramount in comparison—but there are things I could have done better. Those things are a constant reminder that I wasted those early days at the training centre—"

Markus gently pries his finger away from his hair, and Connor pauses. He always seems to know when Connor’s particularly fidgety.

Throwing aside the strands of hair he’s plucked, Connor combs his hair back into place with his fingers—slowly this time.

"You're very hard on yourself,” Markus says, watching him closely. “Has anyone ever told you that?"

“I have to be,” Connor insists. “I know I can do better. I’ve had so many resources dedicated to my success anything less than exceeding expectations would be disrespectful to the people who have invested all their time—I can see your frown deepening. I’m assuming I said something wrong then.”

Markus is quiet for a moment. "No," he admits. "I just need to digest everything is all. If it’s any consolations, you’ve exceeded _my_ expectations of you,”

“They weren’t very high expectations in the first place.”

Markus shrugs his shoulder. “Doesn’t change the fact that you have. Not everyone would have gone out of their way to save someone like me or Lucy. Hell,” he mutters, “not everyone in my own District would’ve even bothered being polite to someone from the Seam… Anyway, I’m rambling. Stop holding yourself to impossible standards. You’re not a one man wonder, Connor. You have me and Lucy for all the things you don't know and it’s only fair with how you’re always protecting us.”

“But you won’t…” Connor’s throat suddenly dries. “I won’t have you both forever. At some point... if we get to the end, we’re going to have to go our separate ways.”

“I don’t want to die alone in this Arena,” Markus says, all of a sudden. “Do you?”

“No,” Connor answers immediately. “No, I don’t want to die alone.”

He didn’t even come into this world alone—he’s always had Nines to drag around with him.

“Then we won’t,” Markus decides.

“That’s not for us to decide.”

“I just did.”

“Markus,” Connor says, exasperated.

“I’m not saying that it’s going to be easy, but nothing can stop us from trying.”

“I got the feeling that I’d have more luck halting a tornado in its tracks rather than stopping you from doing anything you wanted to do.”

Markus grins, his teeth highlighting the contrast of his stubble. “It’s part of my charm.”

His smile never fails to coax Connor’s own. Like Connor’s own private waterfall while the forest burns from a wall of fire.

“Your flaws, you mean,” Connor says, meaning none of it

Then Markus's face drops. Connor could see him drifting into a place where Connor can't reach. Maybe it’s selfish to ground him when drifting would give Markus some much needed relief, but panic seizes his throat at the thought of Markus leaving him. _Come back, _Connor wants to say. _Please don’t leave. _

He's not ashamed to admit that he absolutely hates this place. He'd hate it even more if Markus wasn't around.

The silence stews for two minutes before it becomes too much. “What are you thinking about?" Connor asks, taking the plunge.

_Why do you look so sad all of a sudden?_

Markus shuts his eyes, and if it’s about what Connor thinks it is, then Connor knows from experience that closing his eyes won’t banish whatever is haunting him. Rupert, Chris, District 4, Carlos Ortiz—they always stare back at Connor when he does it.

"I killed her," Markus blurts out. "The girl from District 4. I didn't mean to—Oh, well. I did. I did mean to but—"

Markus breathes in, gripping tight on his unravelled breathing. "It was the landmines," he confesses. "I knew that—there was a good chance she'd be caught in the blast. But I made my decision. I was willing to risk it. So I did. I made the shot and the landmines blew up and she was caught in it but—but she—she didn't die right away.

"That's right," Connor says, his stomach plummeting like the tracker jacker hive. "The cannon came after."

Connor expected such… but Christ, with the landmines?

"She didn't even scream," Markus says quietly. "Maybe she couldn’t. That’d be worse. She laid there with her body blown to bits—_oh god—_I could see how burnt and the white of her bones. She was fading away in so much pain. And I couldn't even end it for her. I was such a fucking coward. I just—went and threw up somewhere else. Then, I heard the cannon, and I realised that I did that to her. _Me. _I killed her like that. There are parts of her that'll never reach her family, and it's all my fault." A sob finally breaks. Markus ducks his face into his hands. "I’m so sorry. I didn't mean to. I'm so, so sorry."

Connor doesn't know what to do. Markus has never sounded so broken and hurt, and Connor himself feels a little raw from the admission. It's not really his fault—they both know that, down to the part of their soul which cries at the injustice. Yet, it is. Markus may not be the one who dumped them all into this Arena. Markus isn't the one who armed himself with the landmines, but he is the one who detonated the explosion.

So, Connor pulls Markus into a hug, and Markus's sobs become more uncontrollable as he muffles it into Connor's neck. Connor holds him tight, blinking back the tears and regrets that threatens to break out from his own chest. In one horrifying, gut-wrenching moment, Connor realises never apologised for killing his own victims.

“I’m sorry,” Markus keeps saying. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” Connor whispers, rubbing his back. “I know, Markus.”

Markus cries and cries until, eventually, his chest stops rattling from his sobs, and his breathing evens out. After a while, even though his hold on Connor doesn’t slack, Markus grows heavier in his arms.

"Does it ever get better from here?" he asks.

Connor thinks of all the victors before them—of Hank and Allen, and all the tributes which died under their mentorship.

"I don't know," Connor says. "I don't think it will ever get better."

“I hope they’re watching this,” Markus says, mumbling against Connor’s wet neck. “I hope they get to hear that I’m sorry, even if they hate me for it. Hell, they _should _hate me for it. It’s all such a mess right now. _I’m_ a mess right now. Who even cries on TV?”

They probably will. The Capitol audience loves personal insights into the Tributes. It’s a strange, almost discordant, curiosity. They despise inter-District interaction, yet they crave for the hints of interpersonal drama in the Games. The most replayed moments of different Games were always one where Tributes were at their most vulnerable and broken.

“Lots of people,” Connor offers. “The Capitol has proper shows with actors, props, sets and a script which they practice. I bet they get paid to cry all the time.”

Markus gives a weak laugh. “Sounds exhausting.”

“Thank you, Connor,” Markus says, but he doesn’t pull away. “I didn’t want to burden Lucy with this. She’s still so young.”

“She hasn’t killed anyone in the Games like we have, you mean.”

Markus hesitates. “Yeah,” he admits. “There’s no other way to put it, is there?”

“No.”

“Does it… does it ever get easier?”

Connor closes his eyes. _Which one? _he thinks. _The killing? The regret? The grief?_

The searing relief when Connor comes out on top, or the disgust and guilt which weighs him down after?

Connor compares Chris and Rupert to District 4 and Carlos Ortiz.

“No,” Connor lies. “It never does.”

It probably won’t for Markus. Markus is a better person than him.

“Can we stay like this for a little longer?” Markus says.

“Of course,” Connor says, as if it was possible to say otherwise.

“I’ll let you go to sleep soon, I promise.”

Shaking his head, Connor says, “I don’t mind.”

“I know you don’t. I’m just worried that you _do _mind but you’re too polite to tell me otherwise.”

“I can be firm when I want to be.”

“But you’re a natural people pleaser,” Markus mumbles, “and you try even harder for the people you like.”

“You’re grumpy when you’re sleepy.”

Markus’s shoulder shakes in silent laughter. “How is that me being grumpy?”

“It just is,” Connor decides.

“I’m sure it is,” Markus says, sounding very mean and doubtful. Connor is gracious enough to ignore him.

Markus moves his face so he can rest it on Connor’s shoulder, a reflection of how Connor had his earlier. He’s always known that Markus is beautiful—handsome and striking in all his edges. Connor has lost count—ironically—the many time he lost his train of thought from drawing invisible pictures from Markus’s freckles. Right now, though, he’s blotchy and puffy from being all blubbery. He takes one hand and wipes his face with the back of his shirt, before settling back into Connor’s hug.

“You know,” Markus says, all of a sudden. “A gentleman would tell me I look pretty when I cry.”

“Hmm,” Connor says. “A gentleman shouldn’t lie.”

“I’ll admit—execution plays a huge part. When I pull out those lines… they’re usually well received.”

“Am I supposed to be jealous?” Connor asks, holding in his amusement. “I kind of feel sorry for all the people you've used it on.”

“Hey now.”

“I admit, I'm not quite the dating aficionado like you are, but if people are crying when you’re trying to impress them, then I’m pretty sure you’re not doing it right.”

“They’re not the ones who had to sneak out the window and had to _outrun _a guard dog.”

“You did that to yourself,” Connor tells him. “That dog, though? He’s a good boy. He did an outstanding job.”

Markus juts out his bottom lip. “Now who’s being mean here?”

Connor bites in his lip, knowing that if he does laugh, it’ll only make Markus’s pouting even worse.

Their silly, stolen moments are so out of place from all the blood on their hands and the eyes on their backs, but they’re the only things which make this wretched place bearable. If Connor had his way, he’d spend the rest of the night where he is. But he can’t hide in Markus’s arms forever. It’s warmer under the sleeping bag and Lucy might get lonely.

“You’re tired, Markus,” Connor says. “We should try and get as much sleep as we can. Let’s go back before Lucy wakes up.

* * *

Connor wants to say sorry too, if he ever gets out of the Arena. He wants to say sorry to the families of all his victims—for ending everything they were, and everything they could be. He doesn’t want to do it in front of the camera, though, and he knows it’s selfish, but he’s not brave enough to flay himself so publicly like Markus did. He wants to do it in private, and face the wrath, the despair, and the sorrow he deserves in person.

If he survives the Arena, that is. If he doesn’t then he promises that an apology will be one of the last things he utters before he dies.

It’s the least he could do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Markus :(

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: fatcatsarecats or conneko.


End file.
